FOR CHARITY: Dominic (seated fifth left) with foundation guests and the recipients.
KUCHING: The Hii Yii Ngiik and Wong Ai Lang Foundation presented study grants and textbooks grants to 44 students yesterday.
The foundation also presented welfare donations to several schools.
In his speech, chairman Datuk Dominic Hii said the foundation has contributed about RM54,000 this year, most of which was for education purposes.
“The foundation’s purpose is to help the needy and poor and today’s event is one of the many charity activities the foundation carries out yearly.
“I also hope students who are in Chinese independent schools will study harder and obtain the highest achievements possible for their own better future,” he said.
The foundation’s ‘Sponsor-A-Child’ programme, he said, has also sponsored five children from the Sarawak Cheshire Home, Salvation Army Children’s Home, and Sarawak Orphans Welfare Organisation (Peryatim).
Among the recipients was Leslie Chai from Serian Public Secondary School — a Chinese-medium school.
“I come from a single parent family and I thank my mother because she is an ordinary Bidayuh woman but she sent me to a Chinese school to get an education.
IMPORTANT AID: Leslie with Huang after the ceremony.
“She sent to me to this Chinese school because she believes it is important to learn many languages,” he said, adding that learning Mandarin has given him an extra advantage.
He thanked principal Huang Ping and his teachers for helping him to apply for the assistance scheme from the foundation.
“It is such an honour to be recognised and I thank them for being my support. I promise to do my best to get better results in my studies so that I too can help people who are in need in future,” he said.
Meanwhile, a leaflet distributed to the press stated that the foundation is the administrator of the will of the late Dr Hii Yii Ngiik.
Dr Hii was a devout Catholic born in 1914 to an extremely poor family.
At age eight, he helped his father carry wood to support the family and never had the opportunity to be educated in his home village in China.
After he came to Sarawak when he was 12, he managed to attend primary school.
He worked hard and founded the Yung Kong Company in 1960, and was very dedicated to helping the poor and needy.
Although Dr Hii passed away in 2003, his spirit of love continues through the foundation.