Remember The Day - Asrama Donni Rayyaj Tawau

REMEMBER THE DAY

You can always trust your inner feelings. Cause they always tell the truth. Where did it get you and your analyzing. Just do what feels right for you.

As you know there’s always good and evil. Make your choice don’t be blind.

Open up your mind and don’t be trivial. There’s a whole new world to find

Make it real not fantasy

~ Make it Real by Scorpions ~

The first time I heard this song was in late evening early 1980’s on a cheap radio sitting at a table in an open air car park opposite the Butterworth train station. I was 16 and helping out my relative who owns the car park business writing parking tickets when I heard the song on the RAAF radio channel (run by the Royal Australian Air Force). It was an amazing sound to be heard over the radio as local radio stations do not play rock songs back then.

I always thought that the lyrics may mean something some day. It’s about following your heart and doing something right and meaningful. The day came recently when I heard the song again in the comfort of my music room coming through my 25-year old Heybrook speakers.

Things have changed significantly for me but I still remember that moment and the urge to make something that you imagined in your mind into something real.

GIVING BACK TO SOCIETY

I am running down the days before I step down as President of the Alumni in May,2011. Some of you may remember the manifesto that I wrote when I was first appointed President. I wanted to get the alumni to start thinking of projects where we give back to society in a meaningful way. Cikgu Ummi mentioned at IFTAR 2010, and she is right, that we are at the peak of our career and in life in general, what I called the Form 4 of our lives.

We have now been presented with an opportunity to do something significant and meaningful. To change lives. According to Cikgu Teh, when he gave his speech at the IFTAR 2010 recently, if we change just one life, we change the world. Well, let’s change the World then.

This opportunity is courtesy of my friends in Sabah Credit Corporation. They are the same people who partnered with Killerbatch and successfully constructed Asrama Donni in Kiulu.

I got an e-mail from them when reading my blackberry while listening to Friday khutbah during fasting month a few weeks ago. They have asked whether we would like to build another hostel in Sabah, but this time it is for the children of Tawau. Coming on a Friday, during khutbah none the less and in the month of Ramadhan, it must be something that we should look closely at.

SABAH CREDIT CORPORATION

Sabah Credit Corporation, or SCC, is a credit company 100% owned by the Government of Sabah. Basically they give out housing and personal loans etc.

Being 100% government owned, they set aside a certain percentage of their profit every year to build infrastructure to assist the needy in Sabah. Amongst the infrastructure that they built in the past include, hostels, surau, orphanages, rumah ibu tunggal etc.

The sum that they set aside every year, though in the millions, is not enough to cope with the requirements. This is where we come in. We can sponsor one of their project by organizing a fundraising.

It must be said however that funding is not the only reason that SCC has chosen to work with Killerbatch in the past. The other main reason is to create awareness of the situation in Sabah.

THE PROJECT

Rumah Anak Yatim Yayasan Jama’eah (RAYYAJ) in Tawau, Sabah is an orphanage meant for primary schoolchildren managed by Yayasan Jama’eah. It will commence its first student intake in January, 2011, expected to be around 40 students.

Jabatan Hal Ehwal Islan Negeri Sabah (JHEAINS) has agreed to build a four classroom Sekolah Agama. As most students are from out of town, they need a hostel for the students to stay.

The hostel will accommodate 100 students and will be maintained by Yayasan Jama’eah. The cost of the hostel is not expected to exceed RM200,000. The actual specifications and costs are currently being worked on by SCC.

If we agree to partner with SCC, our job will be to raise the necessary funds. SCC will manage the design, getting authorities’ approvals, appointing contractors etc. up until the completion of the hostel.

When completed, Yayasan Jama’eah will undertake the running of RAYYAJ.

WHY SABAH

I am sure all of us are convinced that building a hostel for orphans is a good cause. The question begging and an answer is “why Sabah?”.

Sabah is the second largest state in the Federation of Malaysia. Its land area is 76,115 sq km wide and the population, according to Wikipedia, is around 3.20 million people.

When compared to Malaysia which is 329,845 sq km with a population of 28.3 million, we could say Sabah is approximately 23.1% the size of Malaysia and 11.3% of Malaysians are from Sabah. So, in an ideal world, Sabah should get between 11.3% to 23.1% of Federal’s budget for their infrastructure.

Unfortunately, I do not think Sabah receives between 11.3% to 23.1% of the national’s annual budget. I suspect it is lesser but I am not about to raid the Treasury in Putrajaya to get the data. Instead, I would like to construct an “MRSM Index” as a proxy. MRSM Index measures how many MRSM’s there are compared to the State’s size, just as an indication whether MRSMs are distributed fairly amongst states.

We have 53 MRSM listed (inclusive of those under construction) in Malaysia. In Sabah, there are two MRSMs or approximately 4% of the total, far below the 11.3% to 23.1% that they deserve if we build MRSMs based on the size of Sabah relative to the size of Malaysia.

For the record, Sabah has the least number of MRSMs, which ties with Perlis at two each.

To complete the statistics, there are four states with three MRSMs. They are Melaka, Pulau Pinang, Sarawak and surprisingly, Selangor. Other states have four or more MRSMs, with Perak having the lion’s share of eight MRSMs.

Admittedly, this is a crude and not so accurate barometer but let’s settle on the point that the children of Sabah do not have sufficient infrastructure compared to us who are lucky enough from the other states of Malaysia.

The pressure on the kids to cope with every day life is heart wrenching. It is how the story of Donni John Duin, an eleven year old boy who committed suicide to alleviate his family’s financial burden became a tragic reality. Please google “Donni John Duin” if you have not heard his story.

This is the reason why Killerbatch agreed to raise funds to build a hostel in Kiulu. The same reason which I hope all of you would agree upon to build another one in Tawau.

THE PLAN

The fundraising that we are about to embark is not a small one, albeit not an impossible task either.

Based on past experience, the planning and actual construction will take about one year. We should target the hostel to be ready for occupation the year after

next year – 2012. So, we have one year to sort the fundraising part to raise RM200,000.

2012 is a meaningful year for MRSM Kulim too. We will build this hostel as a run up to the 35th Anniversary of the commencement of MRSM Kulim on 31 March,2012.

We could ride on the goodwill that was garnered when Killerbatch did the fundraising for Asrama Donni. We can count on a few significant VVIPs:

1. We can approach the Tuan Yang Terutama of Sabah (TYT) to get this
fundraising project adopted by him. If we use his Foundation as a conduit to channel any fundraising, the donors will get tax exemption. This was crucial when we want to get significant contribution from Corporates.

2. We will ask CIMB Foundation to support by donating furnishings to the hostel. The cost to furnish a hostel would come to RM50,000 easily.

3. Dato Mukhriz Mahathir and top brass from ANSARA would come and officiate any meaningful fundraising events that we can think of, such as charity golf, fundraising dinner, charity art sale, charity theater etc. We can even count on Chairman of MARA and KP MARA to give support.

4. New Straits Times and some of our friends from other newspapers may give us coverage.

When Killerbatch started the "Kulim to Kiulu" Asrama Donni project, we do not know any of the abovementioned people. All the above are goodwill accumulated as we progressed deeper into the construction of Asrama Donni. We picked up friends along the way. It will go to waste if we do not ride on the goodwill for this new project, which I propose to be named “Asrama Donni, RAYYAJ, Tawau”.

THE FIRST FUNDRAISING EVENT

As always, the first step is always the most difficult. As a start, I think we should look internally which is the easiest for the first round of fundraising.

On 31 March, 2011, I propose that we all donate our salary for that day to this cause. That was the date MRSM Kulim started with the registration of the first batch of students. We contribute on 31 March, 2011 and officiate the opening of the hostel one year later on 31 March, 2012, on MRSM Kulim’s 35th Anniversary.

Hopefully, this time we can get Tuanku Sultan Kedah to witness this project to cement further the ties between Kedah and Sabah.

I wonder if we all donate one day’s salary, what would be the amount that we will eventually raise. The GDP of Malaysia is USD14,215, which works out to be RM3,672 per capita per month or RM120 per capita per day.

But we are not the average Malaysian. We are the top 1.5% of the students’ population who have been chosen by MARA and given assistance since we were 13 years old. So, lets assume on average we earn double than the average population, which brings us to RM240 per day.

If we accumulate RM240 per person from 50 people from each batch, we would have raised RM84,000. That fund will be used as mobilization to start the construction of Asrama Donni RAYYAJ. The committee will figure out other fundraising ideas to get us to RM200,000.

Perhaps in years to come there will be an Asrama Donni in every small town in Malaysia. We must remember Donni so that the tragedy should never happen ever again.

I am inspired by the Terry Fox story. It’s an amazing story about how a 22 year old young man set up to raise some money for cancer research by running across Canada. His story was loosely copied in the movie Forrest Gump when Forrest decided to run across America. Unfortunately Terry did not complete his mission as he died just a few kilometers to the coast after having run 5,000 kilometers
as his cancer got to his lungs before he could complete his epic run.

Theamazing fact is that he ran the equivalent of one marathon a day by using one artificial leg, having been amputated to remove his cancer.

Now every year, there is a Terry Fox run which is organized in almost every major city which was inspired by Terry Fox. When Terry first thought of the idea, he wanted to raise 1 million Canadian Dollars which he revised to 24 million (which is one Dollar contribution from every Canadian). To date, more than 500 million Canadian Dollars have been raised for cancer research under his name. Please google Terry Fox to get the full story.

TO REMEMBER IS NOT TO FORGET

There are so many things to remember as we commence this project.

We must remember where we came from. The story that Cikgu Teh recounted about the student who had only one good shirt is not atypical only 30 years ago. MRSM has successfully re-engineered our immediate society and we must remember to help those who are behind.

Remember the Donni tragedy and not let it happen again.

Remember 31 March, 2011 and to donate our pay for that day.

Let me end at the place where I started. I was reading in my study while listening to the Scorpions when the song quoted in the first paragraph above burst out of the speakers. To come to a complete circle, I thought I would share with you the words that I was reading, which, to me, are very critical to what we are trying to do. If I started with the lyrics of Messrs Klaus Maine and Rudolph Schenker of the Scorpions, I will end with the speech that President Theodore Roosevelt delivered at the Sorbonne in April, 1910.
It reads:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the
end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

It’s a great description of a hero. Something we should remember when we strive to help those kids in Sabah. So, let us all remember where we came from.

Can I count on your support, please?

Raja Ali Raja Othman (082/79)
Presiden ANSARAKU 2009~2011

16 September, 2010