By Melati Mohd Ariff
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 (BernamaMA) -- Helping underprivileged children to attain education has always been Torben Venning's passion.
For over 10 years, he has taught immigrants' children attending free schools in his native country Denmark. The schools established by immigrants' communities, received support from the Danish government.
So naturally when he came to Sabah, 'the land below the winds' in 1990, he was deeply touched with the plight of thousands of children of foreign workers, living in the vast oil palm plantations.
Most of the children were deprived of education simply because they were without proper documents and often regarded as 'unregistered and stateless' children.
His experience with teaching immigrants' children in Denmark gave him the much needed boost of confidence to undertake this huge task of providing basic education for the underpriviliged children.
According to Venning a.k.a by his Muslim name, Abdullah Bakar, he and a few friends set up three learning centres in plantations around Lahad Datu (a town in Tawau, east Sabah) in 1991 before returning to Denmark in 1994 to start a family with his wife, Rosalyn, whom he met in Sabah.
TAKING THE CHALLENGE
Venning and his wife returned to Sabah 10 years later with their four sons.
"We were actually looking for an appropriate place to start some school project. Some friends told us about the situations prevailing in the oil palm plantations in Lahad Datu.
"We then took up the challenge to lead this school project under Borneo Child Aid Society or Humana as it is known locally. The project is more of an effort to provide education for the underprivileged children," Venning told Bernama in an interview in Kuala Lumpur after speaking at the 'Education for Every Child Forum' organised by Bar Council Malaysia and Unicef held in Kuala Lumpur recently.
Venning said Humana's main concern has been from the beginning to provide primary education for children of the plantation workers in Sabah.
"All children have an unquestionable right to basic education, specifically outlined in the United Nation's Child Rights Convention (CRC).
"Our initiatives provide this free daily education for the children who would otherwise be deprived of it," said Venning whose background includes a study in anthropology from the University of Copenhagen.
From a small-scale project, Humana's learning centres have grown and currently it has about 105 centres, providing education from kindergarten up to primary six.
The centres are located from Kalabakan outside Tawau over Semporna to Sandakan and all the way to Sugut near to Pitas on the northern part of Sabah.
In total, there are more than 8,000 students studying at the centres and their parents are mainly Indonesian and Filipino working in the oil palm plantations.
"We are very much engaged in this humanitarian project and our own nine-year old son is attending our learning centre in Lahad Datu," said Venning who proudly said the centres have received good response from the Education Ministry.
PLANTATION CHILDREN
By providing education for the children also means they are being kept off the streets and also from becoming child labourers in the plantations.
To Venning, the project's director, that in itself is already a big achievement.
He explained that children in the plantations are often left on their own when both parents are out working in the fields.
The children, too, he said would eventually end up as child labourers at an early age, following their parents to work in the field and picking loose fruits.
"This should not be the case and the only cure is through education. If we do not provide them with some basic education, many will end on the street, got themselves involved in drugs or in crime.
"We do see children in the towns having very often, miserable life so if we can help to keep children off the street or help them to get a better life, it is a very big satisfaction," he said.
Even with more than 8,000 children attending BCAS learning centres, Venning said efforts are being made to reach out to other plantation and minorities children living in remote areas.
"As a plantation worker, you are supposed to be a bachelor, unmarried and therefore with no children. This is only in theory but in actual fact, children are being born and there are thousands and thousands of children living in the plantations in Sabah.
"Figures quoted in the press put the number as between 26,000 to 40,000 plantation children.
"For plantation of about 10,000 hectares, we estimate it has between 300 and 400 children. With about 1.5 million hectares of oil palm plantations in Sabah, this should give a good indication on the number of children in such plantations," said Venning.
He said efforts are being made by the Immigration Department in cooperation with the Indonesian consulate general and the plantation companies to register these children. The children are thereby accepted as Indonesian citizens and given a temporary permit to stay in Sabah.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Speaking further on the learning centres, Venning explained the project in the plantations is carried out in a positive cooperation with major plantation companies.
They include Sime Darby, IOI, PPB Oil Palms, Genting Plantations, JC Chang and Hap Seng.
"Besides from being an example of good corporate social responsibility, this is in line with the demands towards social sustainability within the palm oil industry as set out in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
"However, in some cases we have to initiate funding ourselves. That is one of our challenges and definitely we are in need of assistance," he said.
Venning added that important support during the past 5 years has also come from the Embassy of Finland as well as from the Embassy of the Netherlands, both in Kuala Lumpur.
Other donors towards the projects include HSBC Bank, Munchy's and Bursa Malaysia as well as a number of Danish companies including EAC, Maersk and Grundfos.
He also said the Society's long time support and advisor is Danish honorary Consul John Madsen.
EDUCATION FOR OTHER MINORITIES
Besides plantation children, Venning said the focus is also to provide education for underprivileged children living in towns and children of the Bajau Laut.
There are about 900 children currently attending classes at centres established in shophouses in Lahad Datu.
The children are usually of legal immigrants such as maids and construction workers.
On the learning centre for Bajau Laut children, Venning told Bernama there are about 200 children attending the centre established on BumBum Island off Semporna.
The centre was built with the help of a group of volunteers from Sweden.
"The children also came to help and they were extremely happy to attend the classes. Actually to our surprise the children who were illiterate picking up their lessons very fast.
"However, the need is much bigger and we intend to focus on this area including the islands and small settlements of other minorities," he said.
Venning described the Bajau Laut as special because they are traditionally sea faring people.
"They roam the waters off the east coast of Sabah and they even go to Mindanao (Philippines) and Sulawesi (Indonesia) and therefore their nationality is almost impossible to determine although many of them has stayed along the coast of Sabah for so many years and for many generations.
"As most of the parents are illiterate and the fact that they live most of their life on the sea, this gives some problem to the tradition of sending the children to school," he said, adding that he has seen some children of the Bajau Laut who live on the pavement, learning to beg from an early age!
SYLLABUS AND TEACHERS
Venning who is regarded as the driving force behind Humana's learning centres talked with great pride on his students whom he said are often excellent students.
Children as young as five years are enrolled in the kindergarten and they would progress up to primary six. Most of the centres operate two session, which is from 7 am to 11.30 am and 12.30 am to 4.30 pm.
The syllabus taught at the centres, he said is as closest as possible to the Malaysian national curriculum.
"Even though most of the children have foreign parents (Indonesian or Filipinos), it is very important to teach them that they are in Malaysia, so we sing the national anthem and they are also taught Bahasa Malaysia," he explained, adding that there is also an inclusion of some subjects about Indonesia based on government to government (G to G) agreement.
The Society, he said employed about 200 teachers, majority are locals. At present, there are also 38 teachers sent by the Indonesian government and 43 more are scheduled to arrive soon. They would normally stay for two years under the G to G agreement.
According to Venning, for many of the children of foreign workers, they would be sent back to Indonesia or Philippines after they have completed primary six to continue their education as they would be big enough to stay with relatives.
Nevertheless, he said, many stay behind and lack opportunities to continue with their education.
MORE PLANS
According to Venning, the Society's education initiatives are present in most of East Sabah.
The plan now, he said is to start two learning centres for refugee children in cooperation with the UNHCR (the United Nations refugee agency) in the area around Kuala Lumpur.
The willingness is also there to start centres around Kota Kinabalu and other places in Sabah, provided the Society can find some good partners to work with.
"The biggest constraint is that with a very low budget and so many children to care for, we are always short of funding for our fixed running expenses and for the improvements, which we want to carry out.
"We are still trying to find funding around RM800,000 for almost 2,000 of our children who are not sponsored for the coming 2010. We hope much for corporate social responsibility or private donations to help secure the continuation of our projects," he added.
(Further information can be found on the Website of BCAS www.borneochildaid.org )
-- BERNAMA
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 (BernamaMA) -- Helping underprivileged children to attain education has always been Torben Venning's passion.
For over 10 years, he has taught immigrants' children attending free schools in his native country Denmark. The schools established by immigrants' communities, received support from the Danish government.
So naturally when he came to Sabah, 'the land below the winds' in 1990, he was deeply touched with the plight of thousands of children of foreign workers, living in the vast oil palm plantations.
Most of the children were deprived of education simply because they were without proper documents and often regarded as 'unregistered and stateless' children.
His experience with teaching immigrants' children in Denmark gave him the much needed boost of confidence to undertake this huge task of providing basic education for the underpriviliged children.
According to Venning a.k.a by his Muslim name, Abdullah Bakar, he and a few friends set up three learning centres in plantations around Lahad Datu (a town in Tawau, east Sabah) in 1991 before returning to Denmark in 1994 to start a family with his wife, Rosalyn, whom he met in Sabah.
TAKING THE CHALLENGE
Venning and his wife returned to Sabah 10 years later with their four sons.
"We were actually looking for an appropriate place to start some school project. Some friends told us about the situations prevailing in the oil palm plantations in Lahad Datu.
"We then took up the challenge to lead this school project under Borneo Child Aid Society or Humana as it is known locally. The project is more of an effort to provide education for the underprivileged children," Venning told Bernama in an interview in Kuala Lumpur after speaking at the 'Education for Every Child Forum' organised by Bar Council Malaysia and Unicef held in Kuala Lumpur recently.
Venning said Humana's main concern has been from the beginning to provide primary education for children of the plantation workers in Sabah.
"All children have an unquestionable right to basic education, specifically outlined in the United Nation's Child Rights Convention (CRC).
"Our initiatives provide this free daily education for the children who would otherwise be deprived of it," said Venning whose background includes a study in anthropology from the University of Copenhagen.
From a small-scale project, Humana's learning centres have grown and currently it has about 105 centres, providing education from kindergarten up to primary six.
The centres are located from Kalabakan outside Tawau over Semporna to Sandakan and all the way to Sugut near to Pitas on the northern part of Sabah.
In total, there are more than 8,000 students studying at the centres and their parents are mainly Indonesian and Filipino working in the oil palm plantations.
"We are very much engaged in this humanitarian project and our own nine-year old son is attending our learning centre in Lahad Datu," said Venning who proudly said the centres have received good response from the Education Ministry.
PLANTATION CHILDREN
By providing education for the children also means they are being kept off the streets and also from becoming child labourers in the plantations.
To Venning, the project's director, that in itself is already a big achievement.
He explained that children in the plantations are often left on their own when both parents are out working in the fields.
The children, too, he said would eventually end up as child labourers at an early age, following their parents to work in the field and picking loose fruits.
"This should not be the case and the only cure is through education. If we do not provide them with some basic education, many will end on the street, got themselves involved in drugs or in crime.
"We do see children in the towns having very often, miserable life so if we can help to keep children off the street or help them to get a better life, it is a very big satisfaction," he said.
Even with more than 8,000 children attending BCAS learning centres, Venning said efforts are being made to reach out to other plantation and minorities children living in remote areas.
"As a plantation worker, you are supposed to be a bachelor, unmarried and therefore with no children. This is only in theory but in actual fact, children are being born and there are thousands and thousands of children living in the plantations in Sabah.
"Figures quoted in the press put the number as between 26,000 to 40,000 plantation children.
"For plantation of about 10,000 hectares, we estimate it has between 300 and 400 children. With about 1.5 million hectares of oil palm plantations in Sabah, this should give a good indication on the number of children in such plantations," said Venning.
He said efforts are being made by the Immigration Department in cooperation with the Indonesian consulate general and the plantation companies to register these children. The children are thereby accepted as Indonesian citizens and given a temporary permit to stay in Sabah.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Speaking further on the learning centres, Venning explained the project in the plantations is carried out in a positive cooperation with major plantation companies.
They include Sime Darby, IOI, PPB Oil Palms, Genting Plantations, JC Chang and Hap Seng.
"Besides from being an example of good corporate social responsibility, this is in line with the demands towards social sustainability within the palm oil industry as set out in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
"However, in some cases we have to initiate funding ourselves. That is one of our challenges and definitely we are in need of assistance," he said.
Venning added that important support during the past 5 years has also come from the Embassy of Finland as well as from the Embassy of the Netherlands, both in Kuala Lumpur.
Other donors towards the projects include HSBC Bank, Munchy's and Bursa Malaysia as well as a number of Danish companies including EAC, Maersk and Grundfos.
He also said the Society's long time support and advisor is Danish honorary Consul John Madsen.
EDUCATION FOR OTHER MINORITIES
Besides plantation children, Venning said the focus is also to provide education for underprivileged children living in towns and children of the Bajau Laut.
There are about 900 children currently attending classes at centres established in shophouses in Lahad Datu.
The children are usually of legal immigrants such as maids and construction workers.
On the learning centre for Bajau Laut children, Venning told Bernama there are about 200 children attending the centre established on BumBum Island off Semporna.
The centre was built with the help of a group of volunteers from Sweden.
"The children also came to help and they were extremely happy to attend the classes. Actually to our surprise the children who were illiterate picking up their lessons very fast.
"However, the need is much bigger and we intend to focus on this area including the islands and small settlements of other minorities," he said.
Venning described the Bajau Laut as special because they are traditionally sea faring people.
"They roam the waters off the east coast of Sabah and they even go to Mindanao (Philippines) and Sulawesi (Indonesia) and therefore their nationality is almost impossible to determine although many of them has stayed along the coast of Sabah for so many years and for many generations.
"As most of the parents are illiterate and the fact that they live most of their life on the sea, this gives some problem to the tradition of sending the children to school," he said, adding that he has seen some children of the Bajau Laut who live on the pavement, learning to beg from an early age!
SYLLABUS AND TEACHERS
Venning who is regarded as the driving force behind Humana's learning centres talked with great pride on his students whom he said are often excellent students.
Children as young as five years are enrolled in the kindergarten and they would progress up to primary six. Most of the centres operate two session, which is from 7 am to 11.30 am and 12.30 am to 4.30 pm.
The syllabus taught at the centres, he said is as closest as possible to the Malaysian national curriculum.
"Even though most of the children have foreign parents (Indonesian or Filipinos), it is very important to teach them that they are in Malaysia, so we sing the national anthem and they are also taught Bahasa Malaysia," he explained, adding that there is also an inclusion of some subjects about Indonesia based on government to government (G to G) agreement.
The Society, he said employed about 200 teachers, majority are locals. At present, there are also 38 teachers sent by the Indonesian government and 43 more are scheduled to arrive soon. They would normally stay for two years under the G to G agreement.
According to Venning, for many of the children of foreign workers, they would be sent back to Indonesia or Philippines after they have completed primary six to continue their education as they would be big enough to stay with relatives.
Nevertheless, he said, many stay behind and lack opportunities to continue with their education.
MORE PLANS
According to Venning, the Society's education initiatives are present in most of East Sabah.
The plan now, he said is to start two learning centres for refugee children in cooperation with the UNHCR (the United Nations refugee agency) in the area around Kuala Lumpur.
The willingness is also there to start centres around Kota Kinabalu and other places in Sabah, provided the Society can find some good partners to work with.
"The biggest constraint is that with a very low budget and so many children to care for, we are always short of funding for our fixed running expenses and for the improvements, which we want to carry out.
"We are still trying to find funding around RM800,000 for almost 2,000 of our children who are not sponsored for the coming 2010. We hope much for corporate social responsibility or private donations to help secure the continuation of our projects," he added.
(Further information can be found on the Website of BCAS www.borneochildaid.org )
-- BERNAMA
No comments:
Post a Comment