Sibu’s Agape Centre new block empowers youths with special needs for brighter future

SIBU (Oct 14): The new block at the Agape Centre here is set to be the place where young adults with special needs can gain skills that will enable them to become productive members of society.

Association for Children with Special Needs Sibu (ACSNS) president Dato Janet Lau said the facility provides a whole range of vocational training programmes such as in packaging and woodcraft.

At the same time, she said it also offers training in operating a car wash, resource mart, laundry, bakery and recycling centre, and even in managing a café and a hostel.

“These services are provided for members of the public to utilise. Everything we provide here is part of the training for them (youths with special needs) to be more independent, so that their parents will not have to worry so much about them as they grow older.

“Our job is to help them, train them and prepare them for the future,” she said in a recent interview.

It started with a dream

Janet said it had always been the dream and hope of ACSNS when she mooted the idea of having a workplace for the young adults with special needs back in 2010.

She said as ACSNS could only help children aged 12 and below, she could not help but to ask herself what would happen to those who are older as they too deserved the same opportunities as everybody else.

“We must help them go further in life, instead of stopping at age 12. I started thinking of what we could offer them and what these special needs youths could do. This is the dream of helping them by giving them a place.”

With this idea and the consent from her team, Janet asked ACSNS secretary Dr Toh Teck Hock to prepare a proposal and to also request for a land, all of which was approved in 2011.

Dr Toh then talked to a few people from the government agencies to put ideas together and for the next two years, they were busy looking and speaking to donors.

KTS Group of Companies managing director Dato Henry Lau agreed to assist them and the group fully absorbed the project, becoming its sole donor.

Janet said it only took two meetings with Henry to obtain his approval, and to be a step closer to fulfilling the dream.

Dr Toh, a manager from KTS and an architect then traveled to Peninsular Malaysia to explore models that they could use, and the services available.

Dr Toh said the team came back and planned their own architectural designs for the building.
Finally, the earth-breaking for the project took place in 2016.

“We started to apply for permits from various sources. That took us a few years, until 2019. Finally, everything was ready, so in 2019, we started to build,” Dr Toh said.

The construction was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic but working in accordance with the government’s Movement Control Order (MCO) rules, the building was eventually completed in 2021.

“So, it took us about 12 years from the birth of the ideas, proposal, finding donors, looking for ideas again and then coming up with our own architectural plan for the actual building,” he said.

Just like Janet, Dr Toh also regarded this project as ‘a dream come true’ and while he encouraged people to continue to dream, he pointed out: “Only actions make dreams come true.”

More to be done

Dr Toh also said with a new building, ACSNS would have a much bigger responsibility now, especially in the financial aspect.

He pointed out that the association would need to employ more people and the building would require maintenance.

“Whatever we used to pay before, we have to pay double now. Of course with that, we’re actually able to provide double the services for young adults. We also hope that the support from the community would also ‘double’,” he said.

According to him, for young adults with special needs who have just come in and have yet to contribute, ACSNS would normally ask their parents to contribute minimal fees for the training.

For those able to function well, ACSNS would pay them a basic salary – depending on their ability.

“For those who can work outside, we want the open market to take them in. So, we do want bosses outside to employ these young people.”

According to Janet, the role of ACSNS is mainly financial and in relation to this, she hails the people of Sibu as ‘having been very generous all these years’.

“When people see them, they would feel that there is a need to donate. So, I appeal to them to come here and see the children, and you will understand them better,” she said.

A place for special children

Janet said she had always been very passionate about children with special needs since the first time she met them in 1998 when she was invited to visit a community-based rehabilitation centre at Lau King Howe Hospital where there were seven children at the time.

It was a timely visit because the government was about to demolish the hospital to make for the construction of Sibu Town Square.

“I saw the children and I said: ‘I must immediately do something for these children. If the hospital is dismantled, where would these children go?’,” she recalled.

Then, Janet and three other Lions Club members – Augustine Ngu (Lions Club of Sibu Mandarin), Dr Betty Kong (Lions Club of Sibu Seduan), and Michael Wong (Lions Club of Sibu Host) – formed CBR Clinic, which was later changed to ACSNS in 2002.

Janet, herself, was from Lions Club of Sibu Central.

Subsequently, she proposed to the then-chief minister, and now the Yang di-Pertua Negeri Sarawak, Tun Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud to provide the association with a piece of land for the construction of an establishment for these children, later to be called the Agape Centre.

In 2004, the association moved into Agape Centre and since then, more than 20,000 children with special needs have been registered under ACSNS.

“They come here once a week, sometimes twice a month and sometimes, a few times in a week, for treatment and training. We have a team of doctors from the hospital and also some physiotherapists.

“So, these children come for physiotherapy and medical treatment, learning how to take care of themselves, and also for the parents to learn how to care for them.”

Dr Toh was one of the medical doctors who had been working with the children with special needs in Sibu since he came back from overseas in 2004.

“I must be honest with you – at the time, seeing all these special needs children, it’s something I hardly attended to when I was in the United Kingdom and Australia; it’s something that was really new.

“To help these children went beyond medicine and drugs. Many of them had conditions that no drug could treat such as autism, Down syndrome, and learning difficulties, so they required more than just ordinary drugs,” he said.

Dr Toh said early intervention was ‘very necessary’.

“Under Agape Centre, there are other organisations including Methodist Care Centre and Sibu Autistic Association, and also partnerships with other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government agencies. Together, we put together a community programme.

“Slowly, people got to know about these special children,” said Dr Toh, who himself became a committee member in 2005 and was elected its secretary.

Better awareness

Since being housed at the Agape Centre, ACSNS has employed teachers, conducted workshop, given trainings to the professionals and the teachers, and held conferences.

Through various programmes, the association was able to educate more parents and other members of the community on sending their children for treatments rather than shunning from the public.

Dr Toh said the common diagnosis for children with special needs had never changed for the last 17 years, adding hat many were just not aware that special needs children are everywhere.

“People say last time we didn’t have so many children with special needs. I can only say that this was because of poor recognition and people did not see the reason for them to come out because there was no programme for them.”

Dr Toh said since the establishment of Agape Centre and with programmes put together for the families and the children, many had begun to see hope and the need for early treatment and training.

He admitted, though, that being ACSNS secretary over the past 17 years had been tiring both physically and emotionally, especially with his age catching up.

“However, I’m glad to be involved as I know there is a hope and paths for people with special needs – rather than telling them: ‘I don’t know, your child has autism, and I have nothing to offer, it’s just bad luck’.

“I am happy to tell them: ‘It’s okay. We have good teachers who can help train your children; we have good kindergartens that you can consider sending your child to’.

“If worse comes to worst, you can always send your children to special education class, and if your children can cope, you can go for inclusive education.

“And now, once the child leaves the school, if the child cannot cope with the open market, you can come to our centre and get trained to help them adapt, or we have a place for them,” he said.

Janet, who has been serving as president of ACSNS since 2002, said she felt a sense of gratitude and accomplishment whenever she could see the improvements in the children with special needs, aided by the programmes provided.

She said the reason people were no longer afraid to send their children to the centre was because ‘they could see the results, and the progress’.

“So gradually, parents are no longer shy to have these children anymore, and they’re willing to bring them out instead of keeping them at home.”

With the new building set to accommodate the young adults with special needs, Janet said the association would be better able to reach out to the young adults and encourage them to be more independent.

She also said the new building had been planned in a way that would ensure that it would be able to provide services for many years to come.

“Our donor Dato Henry is a very far-sighted man – he urged us to think of the next 20 years or 30 years, to ensure that we could still provide the services, the facilities and that the building now would still be able to expand maybe 20 years later, as more people could be expected to join,” she said.

Not without its challenges

However, Janet acknowledged that despite all the plans, there were always some limitations – mostly on the financial aspect.

Adding his view on this, Dr Toh also said although the centre had been trying to make some money, the level of efficiency was probably ‘not as good’.

“We would appreciate people to come and utilise our services and of course, pay for these services. This would enable the centre to generate some income to cover the maintenance and also to support the young adults with special needs.

“The ACSNS also requires the community to support these young adults by engaging them, and also employing them. That’s one of the goals as there are many of these young adults in the community – we are talking about at least 10 per cent of society.

“So, every year we have about 100 or 200 of them graduating from schools.

“It is not just Agape Centre, we also need companies and offices to employ our young people so that they can live independently,” Dr Toh said.