Pibakat seeks support from all to help cover overhead costs
KUCHING: The Society for Parents of Children with Special Needs (Pibakat) is hoping for more individuals and organisations to come forward and assist with its overhead expenditures.
Pibakat executive secretary Doris Kueh Yang Pheng said Pibakat needs large funding to run its special daycare centre and Morning Glory programmes to improve the lives of children with various special needs such as those with Down’s syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy and Angelman syndrome.
“We need at least RM60,000 a year to run both programmes,” she told The Borneo Post during a Christmas gathering at Pibakat centre along Jalan Ong Tiang Swee here yesterday.
Kueh said the Morning Glory programme was established in December 2015 with the key objective of educating young adults with special needs for them to gain basic skills such as horticulture and eventually, become economically empowered and independent.
“Under the Morning Glory programme, there is no age limit – we currently have one 40year- old trainee undergoing the programme,” she said, adding that a huge spending is also needed to run its special daycare centre – a place where parents can leave their children as they go to work.
“The majority of children at our daycare centre have nowhere to go as the local kindergartens or nurseries do not have the specialised capacity to care for them,” she added.
Besides these two programmes, Pibakat also runs a communitybased rehabilitation centre PDK 1 for children with special needs, aged six years old and below, and PDK 2 that provides vocational training to young adults.
According to Kueh, each teacher – whether they are attached to PDK 1 or 2 – receives a minimum monthly salary of RM800 from the government. “In addition to the support from the government, we ( Pibakat) also conduct various fundraising activities to add to their (teachers’) salaries and give them bonuses,” she said, adding that Pibakat has a total of 34 working staff members.
Yesterday, 93 children with special needs received Christmas gifts from AirAsia. Special Olympics Kuching Chapter president Datin Dayang Mariani Abang Zain was also present at the gathering.