According to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) Malaysia, at the end of May 2019 there were 173,730 refugees and asylum seekers registered in Malaysia, with 14332 in Johor state alone. Many of these refugees came from the Rohingya community in Myanmar, but in Malaysia they are considered stateless and therefore unable to find legal work or send their children to school. Since 2010, Soraya Alkaff (fourth from right in photo above) has been working with Rohingyas in Malaysia to provide schooling and education projects. In 2017, she started a charity called Cahaya Surya Bakti (CSB) and worked with the UNHCR to set up education programs.
Today the CSB, the Community Services Commitee of the Malaysian Red Crescent (MRC), and medical students from Monash University in Johor Bahru, organised a Hygiene Awareness and Medical Camp along with the Soroptimist International Club Iskandar Puteri and sponsored by KFC. The MRC arrived with boxes of drinks and goody bags to give to the children later in the morning.
Then the medical students arrived full of enthusiasm for the task ahead!
They were soon unloading their props and helping take the MCR boxes upstairs.
Soraya gave them a briefing about the Rohingyas in Malaysia, and then it was time to get to work.
The students were divided into groups and rotated around various activities. They were taught how to wash their hands thoroughly, the same way that medical students are taught, as this is the simplest means to reduce the spread of common infectious diseases.
They were also taught the benefit of hair washing with anti-lice medication and the use of anti-worm tablets. It is easy to forget how expensive hygiene items are when you have little money; priorities become quite different. And it is easy for diseases to spread when living in overcrowded conditions. So, the simplest thing to do is wash hands thoroughly and regularly, and avoid putting unclean hands anywhere near your mouth. Having lived through the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong in 2003, this is a lesson never to be forgotten!
I think the students quite enjoyed the demonstration on hair washing; certainly the MRC staff went out of their way to make this a fun activity. I think the discussion on de-worming was a bit more embarrassing.
But probably the most embarrassing talk was the one on puberty given by two brave new doctors who had to contend with a breakdown in digital communications.
The younger students were divided into smaller groups where they learnt about dental hygiene, how to take your temperature and blood pressure, some basic first aid, and when you might need to see a nurse or a doctor or a paramedic.
But the star of the show was a huge teddy bear! All the children wanted to touch the bear and they were encouraged to imagine he was ill and talk to him to figure out what to do next.
Finally it was time for an early lunch provided by KFC. Although the children did wash their hands before eating, it was clear they were too hungry to worry about the more lengthy hand washing procedure they had been taught earlier in the day.
Our morning finished with the distribution of the goody bags by members of the MRC and the Soroptimist International Club Iskandar Puteri.
Then it was time to go home. For the children, it was back to school. If they are to be settled in a third country, the education provided by Cahaya Surya Bakti and the UNHCR will be invaluable for their futures, particularly for the young girls who might otherwise become very young brides and mothers. It would be nice to think that these Muslim refugees could become citizens of the predominantly Muslim Malaysia, especially given the shortage of local labour and the potential problems ahead as these children age, but that’s my naive expat-thinking!
You can learn more about CSB via their Facebook page.
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