Rev Elisha Satvinder and Petrina Shee sitting with the primary school students. Photos: The Star/Low Boon Tat
It all started 25 years ago when Petrina Shee and her friends chanced upon two children carrying buckets of water in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur.
When asked, the kids said they had no water at home.
“So we decided to stop and help them,” recalls Shee. “(We found out) they were children of a single mum who had five kids, and were squatters living in the demolished KTM quarters earmarked for development.”
Shee felt that there was something more that had to be done for them.
“We sibuk (be a busybody) and asked if we could go to the kitchen and saw there was no food and nothing was cooking on the stove even though it was already 6pm. Shocked, we asked if they were going to have dinner and they said ‘yes’ to jaga muka (save face),” she says.
Shee then asked if they had food and once again, they said yes. She then asked for permission to open the small refrigerator in their kitchen and found nothing in it.
When children are treated as individuals worthy to be heard and respected, they grow to become individuals who are able to contribute to society.
“We went out and bought roti canai for them, and they were so happy. We were also happy that we could do something good for them,” says Shee.
“When we visited them again, we discovered that the 11-year-old was expelled from school for stealing money and the 12-year-old was barely hanging on in school and couldn’t read or write well.
“Another daughter was estranged from the mother and living with the grandmother. And the four-year-old was clinging onto the mother, crying.
“Today, the 12-year-old (now 37) is an electrical wireman earning a good income, the estranged daughter has reconciled with her mother, gone to college and is now a preschool teacher, and the four-year-old (now 29) is in Japan doing hospitality training under a YTL scholarship. Without intervention, all this would not have been possible and the cycle of poverty wouldn’t have been broken,” she explains.
Shee also decided to take a Montessori course and do her Masters in Education to equip herself when she realised there were many other poor children who couldn’t read or write.
Shee says her stand on education was partly influenced by her schoolteacher father who sent her away from the small town of Bachok, Kelantan,to study in St Mary's Secondary School in KL.
The 56-year-old is the chief executive officer of Dignity for Children Foundation and together with her husband Rev Elisha Satvinder, 58, started working with underprivileged children in 1998, starting with 20 students.
The couple strongly believes that education is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and should be accessible to all.
Today, Dignity is a learning centre with more than 2,300 children aged two to 18. The NGO provides holistic care and education for urban poor children in KL on two tracks: academic – from preschool (Montessori) to primary and secondary leading to Cambridge IGCSE (Form 5) or vocational (transformational enterprises in food, sewing, hairdressing, farming, etc) qualifications.
“Mainstream education is ‘one size fits all’ and penalises children instead of empowering them. If a student is slower, they usually can’t catch up because there isn’t any child-centred intervention programme for them,” says Elisha.
“And, not all children are academically inclined so we shouldn’t traumatise or marginalise those who aren’t,” he adds.
Elisha shares that at Dignity, each student is treated as an individual and assessed whether they would be more suited for the academic or vocational track.
“There was this girl who broke a needle while learning sewing and she panicked because she came from a background which emphasises ‘no mistakes’.
“But the teacher at Dignity told her ‘it’s alright, try again’. For the first time, she wasn’t labelled a failure and at the end of the year, she became the best seamstress in the class,” he says, in giving an example.
A school without walls
Elisha believes his 'dubious' background helps him in his work with underprivileged children because he understands what poverty and hardship means.Elisha, who used to run a bar, reveals that his “dubious background” has helped him deal with students from difficult backgrounds because he understands poverty and hardship, having been through it himself.
He came from a poor family of six raised by his single mother after his father’s death, and was previously involved with a gang and substance abuse, until his life turned around when he started attending church.
Elisha stressed that Dignity is not about “doing charity” but rather, an intervention programme where they have to “count the cost before embarking on it”.
“More than just a school, Dignity’s engagement and involvement in society is extensive. You discover that the child’s problem is at home – abusive family, poor nutrition, squalid living conditions, etc – and when we first deal with that, the kid can then focus on their studies,” he says.
The work isn’t without challenges, the couple admits, one being gaining the trust of the poor.
“People come and go so often in their lives that they expect to be disappointed.
“Organisations or individuals come, donate, and then leave. They might have good intentions but there’s no continuity and they don’t realise how damaging this can be to the poor.”
What’s unique about Dignity’s education is its philosophy that children should learn in real life, similar to an apprenticeship trained on the job, for the vocational track.
“Instead of learning cooking in a classroom, they learn it at a real cafe (Eat X Dignity). They also learn sewing at a real tailor shop (Sew X Dignity),” says Shee.
“Once students learn a skill, they gain so much more confidence and start growing as a person. Otherwise, their life goes downhill, they might leave school and turn to a life of crime,” she says.
There is also a Skate Park which “teaches life lessons to youth: how to fall, pick themselves up, and try again”. They have had skate camps for students where local skateboarders come to share their life stories.
Meanwhile, Farm Academy is where students go for the Travel and Learn programme. Members of the public can also learn and experience educational farming there.
Education is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and should be accessible to all.
Shee and Elisha have two daughters aged 24 and 26 – as well as many foster and adopted children – who are actively involved in their cause.
The couple’s dream is to build a school without walls where there are no limits to learning.
“It’s our dream to enable people to come and learn what they want, without limitations such as age, to upskill or reskill themselves at an affordable cost,” says Shee. “This is especially important for the poor who may have missed opportunities for an education earlier.”
Dignity will be holding a fundraising dinner on Sept 30 at HGH Convention Centre to raise RM2.5mil in order to support 2,500 students next year.
Go to dignityforchildren.org/ for more info.
Breaking the cycle of poverty
Rev Elisha Satvinder and Petrina Shee sitting with the primary school students. Photos: The Star/Low Boon Tat
Shee says her stand on education was partly influenced by her schoolteacher father who sent her away from the small town of Bachok, Kelantan to study in St Mary's Secondary School in KL.
Elisha believes his background helps him in his work with underprivileged children because he understands what poverty and hardship means.
When children are treated as individuals worthy to be heard and respected, they grow to become individuals who are able to contribute to society.
Education is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and should be accessible to all.
Shee (left) and Elisha believe that when you help a child deal with their problems at home, they can then focus better on their studies.
Students are treated as individuals, and not penalised or marginalised for being different, at Dignity.
