Jimmy Sim
SIBU (Oct 14): The Association for Children with Special Needs Sibu (ACSNS) is appealing for more donations from generous quarters to help it carry out meaningful programmes to benefit children with special needs.
Its treasurer, Jimmy Sim, said the association is looking into the possibility of coming up with fundraising events next year.
“Our objective is to help children with special needs and train young adults with special needs so that they can be independent. We sincerely need the strong financial support and contributions from the public,” he said when interviewed by The Borneo Post.
He said the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 had adversely affected the association’s coffers as donations dropped significantly but expenses continued to increase.
“We had to employ more teachers to accommodate the rising number of children and young adults, which had ultimately increased our expenses,” he said, adding that the new building also brought additional expenses.
Sim said ACSNS had been in deficit over the past two years, but they coped by using some reserve funds that had accumulated over the years.
In this regard, he said the association had been aggressively seeking donations from the public, elected representatives, the corporate sector and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) after the Covid-19 lockdown ended.
“Perhaps in the near future, we could organise and run our annual fundraising event, from which the proceeds would help cover our expenses.”
Sim said the first nine months of 2022 has been encouraging for ACSNS as financial support and donations had increased quite substantially.
“We are optimistic that the years ahead will be better, with the Covid-19 cases waning and life returning to normalcy.”
Sim also hoped that the new building, which has a hostel, a laundry, a recycling centre and a resource mart managed by young adults and supervised by teachers, would generate some income for the association.
ACSNS is one of seven charitable organisations that are housed in Agape Centre. The others are Sibu Autistic Association (SAA), Lau King Howe Memorial Children Clinic, Sibu Community-based Rehabilitative Society, Sibu Methodist Care Centre and Special Olympics Sarawak Sibu Chapter
SAA president David Ngu said the challenges were ‘neverending’ in terms of work, whether at SAA or the entire Agape Centre.
Ngu (sixth left) and SAA president Thomas Ling (third right), join the staff members for a group photo.
According to him, the challenges boiled down to three key areas: finance, space limitation and manpower.
“The financial section is our biggest problem due to the difficulties in raising funds as all the organisations in the Agape Centre rely on the community and government’s support for survival.
“We need to look for financial support by ourselves at all times in order for us to sustain. Still, we are very fortunate because Sibu has a loving and a caring group of people who are passionate about helping people and giving generous donations.”
Ngu said the number of children with special needs keep increasing, not just in Sibu but in the entire world.
In this regard, he pointed out that this was even more reason why ACSNS ought to be supported.
He said many parents would send their children to the Agape Centre for further treatment and training especially in the early intervention programme.
File photo shows Minister of Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development, Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah at the launch of the ‘Autism Awareness Month’ held at Agape Centre. Looking on are Bukit Assek assemblyman Joseph Chieng (left) and Ngu.
This was where the space limitation became a big issue, he added.
“We need more space to accommodate more children coming for training. And with more space, it would give rise to the problem of manpower. Whether permanent staff members or volunteers, they are truly needed to facilitate the children’s training.”
On the new building, Ngu said it would give the Agape Centre more space for the children’s training.
“By having a bigger space, more classes can be run. Furthermore, we may have a workshop especially for the young adults, as we want to see our children with special needs have careers in the future, and that they learn to be self-dependent later on in life.
“With this new building plus the programmes that ACSNS is running, the children in Agape Centre would have more opportunities to be trained and equipped for their future.”
Ngu also suggested some improvements for the existing facilities and also enhancements to the staff training programme.
From left) SAA manager Winnie Siong, Ngu, SAA president Thomas Ling and its treasurer Josephine Ting at the launch of the association’s new building fundraising campaign.
“More facilities such as therapy equipment should be added to enhance the training programme, and more courses should be introduced for the staff to upgrade themselves in training the children.
“The Agape Centre has been able to sustain itself until today all because of the generosity from the public. We do need more financial support from everyone in helping to cover the costs of operations.”
Meanwhile, ACSNS vice-president Chong Shu Chong expressed hope that more vocational skills would be introduced to meet the increasing needs of young adults at the centre.
She said it would be difficult to cope with the young adults if the staff members were not effectively trained.
Adding on, she also saw the need to raise public awareness of the services provided by the centre.
“This is to ensure that the people would not have a misconception about the centre, which has been doing a great service for the children with special needs,” said Chong.
File photo shows SAA members attending a session at one of the early intervention centres visited by them during a study tour in Peninsula Malaysia.