Resort guests visit adopted school in Inanam

KOTA KINABALU: British national Siraj and his family, including his seven-and-10-yearold daughters are visiting Kota Kinabalu for the first time for a six-day tropical holiday but decided to make their time here even more memorable with a visit to a local school.

The family mentioned their intentions to the managers at Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa shortly after they arrived in Kota Kinabalu.

The resort’s General Manager Gavin Weightman promptly invited the family to their upcoming visit to their adopted school, Bantayan Inanam Primary School, under theShangri-La Hotels and Resorts’ Corporate Social Responsibility’s EMBRACE project. The girls and parents were joined by regular guests, the Barlows, from Australia.

The Barlows are regular guests of the resort who visit Kota Kinabalu at least twice a year. They usually bring donations from their local community to the school who have so far accepted books, stationary and other educational materials from the couple.

More than 50 management and staff of the resort went to the school with the visiting family to paint some of their classrooms, to beautify the retaining wall outside the computer room and to plant fruit trees in the school’s extensive compound.

Among the trees donated and planted that day were durian, mango, lime and guava fruit trees.

The British girls made friendship loom bands and brought these and other small gifts for their new friends at the local school while the pupils taught them local games.

“The children at the school always make an effort to speak to our guests in English, giving them a chance to practise the language,” said the resort’s corporate social responsibility service leader Joyce Murang.