in the centre; from left, mother and Peah-Ching

Towards the end of year 2010, Peah-Ching, partner of Stephen Tang was preparing hampers for sale just before Chinese New Year 2011. She was hoping to help the underprivileged group before the festival season so she approached Chris Lee Ching-Yong, the Special Officer for the Chief Minister of Johor and seek for his advice.

Chris who is active in charity, told Peah-Ching to help a rehabilitation centre for handicapped children in Muar, where Peah-Ching’s hometown is. It’s Pusat Pemulihan Dalam Komuniti Maharani (in Malay, Maharani Community-based Rehabilitation Centre). Chris then told her, the centre requires support and attention of the public to maintain its service for the community. Although the centre is supported by the state government, donation of the public could help the centre to provide better study environment and improve the living of the children.

one of the children waiting for the parents to pick up

Chris suggested to Peah-Ching that each of the hamper she sells, she could donate RM5 in helping the children. She would like to know more about the centre so invited me to visit the centre together. After 40 minutes drive from Melaka, I arrived in Muar and met up with Peah-Ching and her lovely mother. Together we travelled to the centre which is not far from her house.

Providing special education to mostly dyslexic children and some with autism, the centre currently supports 54 students. We were welcome by one of the assistants, Ms. Nardia and briefed about the daily function of the centre. From what we were told, the children do not stay overnight at the centre however spend half of the day to attend classes. During weekdays, parents would send their children in the morning to the centre and pick them up in the afternoon. They will have a meal in the morning.  

After doing some reading online, I came to understand that parents play a big role in helping their children. Parents usually start to panic after their children fail miserably in Year One or Two as a result of their inability to read. In fact, children with dyslexia need to be taught to read using techniques that are different from those used to teach normal kids. Maharani Community-based Rehabilitation Centre is one of the centres to provide special education to enable dyslexic children to become more successful. It’s also best that parents could sit in during the classes so that they could pick up too the correct techniques to coach their children at home.

It was rather a short trip as the children had gone home when we arrived. We didn’t manage to see how the classes are carrying out regrettably, but we are hoping to visit the centre again in the morning to understand more about the centre and the children.

Hopefully all the children are well and happy. May all beings be happy.

classroom

the students

contact details

dolls of animal

"I love you daddy"

signboard - Pusat Pemulihan Dalam Komuniti Maharani

main entrance with Peah-Ching and mother

centre is in Taman Muar

In addition, I have seen the hampers wrapped by Peah-Ching after we went to centre. They are really nice and presentable. If you are getting hampers for your friends or family and do charity at the same time, feel free to browse Peah-Ching’s hampers flyers for great deals. Click to enlarge and download:

basket hamper flyer

pyramid hamper flyer

The post A short trip to Maharani Community-based Rehabilitation Centre appeared first on juesatta (CJ Photography).

Bill Gates, left, and Warren Buffett, seen in this 2007 photo during the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha, are trying to persuade other American billionaires to give at least half their wealth to charity.

Gates, Buffett lead campaign to persuade America’s wealthiest to donate their fortunes

A little over a year after Bill Gates and Warren Buffett began hatching a plan over dinner to persuade America’s wealthiest people to give most of their fortunes to charity, more than three-dozen individuals and families have agreed to take part, campaign organizers announced Wednesday.

In addition to Buffett and Gates — America’s two wealthiest individuals, with a combined net worth of $90 billion, according to Forbes — 38 other billionaires have signed The Giving Pledge. They include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entertainment executive Barry Diller, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens, media mogul Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, film director George Lucas and investor Ronald Perelman.

“We’re off to a terrific start,” Buffett, co-founder and chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said in a conference call also attended by Bloomberg and San Francisco hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer and his wife Kat Taylor, founder of OneCalifornia Bank.

Buffett said he and Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, and Gates’ wife Melinda made calls to fellow billionaires on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans — in many cases, people they had never met — to try to persuade them to join the giving pledge.

The Giving Pledge

“We contacted between 70 and 80 people to get the 40. A few were unavailable. We don’t give up on them. Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future. We’ll keep on working,” Buffett said.

Bloomberg, who made the bulk of his estimated $17.5 billion fortune from financial news and information services company Bloomberg L.P., said it didn’t make sense to leave everything to his children and have them go through life as members of “the lucky sperm club.”

“You don’t want to leave them so much money that it ruins their lives,” Bloomberg said. “You want kids who can look back and say, ‘Yeah my family helped me but I did something on my own.'”

Added Steyer: “We need to support each other. I look at this as replanting your garden so that future generations will have a full bounty of crops.”

The United States has roughly 400 billionaires — about 40 percent of the world’s total — with a combined net worth of $1.2 trillion, according to Forbes. If they all took the pledge, that would amount to at least $600 billion for charity.

The 40 names that have pledged to date have a combined net worth surpassing $230 billion, according to Forbes. Several of them have said they plan to give away much more than 50 percent of their wealth. Buffett has promised to donate more than 99 percent of his wealth.

The pledge is a moral commitment to give, not a legal contract. It does not involve pooling money or supporting one cause or organization. It’s up to each person who signs the pledge how to divvy up their wealth.

In letters on the givingpledge.org website, the 40 billionaires explain what motivated them to follow in the footsteps of Gates and Buffett.

“I’m particularly thankful for my father’s advice to set goals so high that they can’t possibly be achieved during a lifetime and to give help where help is needed most,” CNN founder Ted Turner said. “That inspiration keeps me energized and eager to keep working hard every day on giving back and making the world a better place for generations to come.”

“My pledge is to the process; as long as I have the resources at my disposal, I will seek to raise the bar for future generations of students of all ages,” filmmaker George Lucas said. “I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to improving education.”

Gates and Buffett hatched the idea of a giving campaign in mid-2009 at a secret dinner meeting in New York with a few select billionaires. The campaign went public this June.

Buffett acknowledged that some wealthy people may find it beneficial to donate more so they can avoid or write off more taxes. But he said that’s not the reason billionaires are taking the pledge.

“Of the 20 or so people that I have talked to that have signed, not one of them has talked to me about taxes,” Buffett said.

“It may be a consideration but I think the motivation goes far, far beyond taxes.”

And of the billionaires contacted who didn’t join the pledge?

“There were a few people who gave answers that indicated their various dissatisfaction with government,” Buffett said. “A few had dynastic ideas about wealth … an intergenerational compact with family to keep that going. And there were others who said, ‘I’ve got a plane to catch and I’ll have to hang up.'”

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