Promoting autism awareness
COMMITTED to doing all it can to aggresively promote awareness on autism, Bank Rakyat has lined up close to 70 programmes in 2018 as part of its corporate social responsibility effort.
Bank Rakyat, which has taken the active role to champion the cause since Dec 2016, has so far this year, organised 60 programmes to heighten awareness on the disorder through education, therapy and fundraising initiatiaves in support of various autism-related associations and centres.
Bank Rakyat marketing and communication senior vice-president Nizam Sani said the highlight for next year would be the Autismlympic Bank Rakyat, which will beheldinPerlisandMalaccainMarchand April, respectively.
This was following the success of the inaugural Autismlympic Bank Rakyat 2017 held at Kompleks Sukan Negara Panasonic Shah Alam on Wednesday.
The games also served as a therapy to stimulate their movement and emotions.
Next year will see Bank Rakyat’s signature Rakyat Run, including a new category, namely ‘Autistic Kids with Family’, as well as the continuity of their ongoing initiatives such as swimming, horse riding, music and cycling therapy programmes for autistic children.
Bank Rakyat, in line with its aspiration to be the voice of autism, has pledged to go as far as they can across the countr y to promote awareness and achieve a wider community outreach.
Nizam said Bank Rakyat does more than just carry out programmes for the cause and are constantly thinking of ways to include them in activities that would assist the associations and centres financially.
“Autism is very close to our heart and we try our best to accommodate the community by engaging a local cafe staffed by autistic young adults named Autism Cafe Project (ACP) to provide catering at events at the bank. We also did a tie-up with ACP for a cooking demonstration at Universiti Malaysia Perlis.
“We have also invited a centre which has a choir with talented autistic children to perform and we paid them. Last Raya, we networked with online shopping platform Lazada to sell paintings as well as crafts, where 100 per cent of its profits were channelled back to them.
“We do all to help the associations and centres generate their own funds. We also provide start-up funds and then we help monetise it further through fundraising activities,” said
Nizam.
He added that there is a collaboration with Blokke, an establishment co-owned by T V personality Nazrudin Rahman and wife, Sheahnee Iman Lee, on Lego therapy for autistic children.
The one-year Lego therapy project, which kickstarted in July this year, helps to boost the coordination and differentiation of colours of autistic children, said Nizam.
A team of volunteers are also trained by professionals at the Lego therapy sessions to assist the autistic children.
“We hope those who are trained will pass their knowledge on to other volunteers so that more autistic children will be able to benefit from this therapy,” added Nizam.