Malaysian Batik Collection and Child to school program [Archives:2004/779/Local News]

By Fahmia AL-Fotih
For the Yemen Times
Ms. Hasnah Kamin, the wife of Malaysian ambassador, held in her residence on Wednesday 29th September, an exhibition of Malaysian Batik collection to benefit the Yemeni Education and Relief Organization (YERO), which sponsors the “Child to School” program.

Ms. Hasnah told the Yemen Times “This is a promotion for Malaysian batik because this batik is brought from Malaysia to our friends here in Sana'a, to see and admire the batik which is a part of Malaysian heritage. We have two purposes and targets. One is to let people know what the Malaysian batik looks like, the other is mainly send the profits of this event to YERRO to help sponsor the “Child to school” program for unfortunate children. In my opinion, education is vital as it makes a difference to life and ones thinking. It makes a difference to how we react and talk. So that's why I took this project, as I think this will help the less-fortunate in Yemen and Sana'a in particular. I am so happy to do this when I see the people buy.”
Nouria Naji, the director of YERO, also talked to the Yemen Times “We have a new project that started in February called sponsoring a child to school. Mainly what we are trying to do is to help children who are unfortunate, who work, and who come from poor families, children who cannot afford the fees of schooling. We try as much as we can to help them and also to help their families by giving them rations, not monthly, but every two months or month and half. So we encourage them to keep their children at school. We also try to make connections with hospitals, and private doctors so that if these children get sick, they can have treatment freely. In fact there are a lot of doctors willing to do so without getting a penny.
At the moment we have only 15 children from three families. These children have already started school in February and they are going very well. Most of them they didn't know how to hold a pen but now they can at least read the alphabet and they can write their names. This is an achievement for us to see them happy. We also try to help the all members of their family for instance, young boys and girls who don't want to study, we put them into training with local organizations which mostly are very helpful and willing in this project. Everybody wants to participates and everybody is keen to do something and this makes us feel good in the end. We are trying to help as many children as we can and put them into school and we are trying to get funding from individuals and from events like this for instance. The profit of this event will go to the children, and I have a big waiting-list”.
About the YERO's activities, she said, “We did a lot of work in the beginning. We have tried to help as many juveniles' centers (for both boys' and girl's) as we can. We have helped the prisons here in Sana'a. We did and have helped a lot of begger centers in Sana'a which are run by Mr. Rashed AL-Shwal. We have received in a year and half, four certificates of appreciation. We feel happy to know that people appreciate what we are doing”
She concluded, “I would like to thank the Malaysian ambassador's wife who is hosting this event. It is kind of her to do so and it is all her idea.”
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