June 23, 2009; Kuala Lumpur – Former students of Maktab Rendah Sains MARA (MRSM) Kulim, known as Killerbatch, hope members of the public will continue to support their mission to build a dormitory for the underprivileged students of SMK Tun Fuad Stephens in Kiulu, Tamparuli, Sabah by voting for them daily at the Freedom2Talk portal organised by Tune Talk Sdn. Bhd.
Its candidate in the online contest, Nur Hamidi Baharuddin said, “Our mission is to raise RM250,000 that will be used to build and equip the dormitory for the students, some of whom currently have to walk for hours just to get to school. This will lessen their burden and allow them to concentrate on their studies.”
Nur Hamidi thanked Tune Talk Sdn. Bhd. for allowing Killerbatch and other candidates the opportunity to voice their causes to the public, and for providing an avenue for members of the public to participate online and support the various causes of their choice.
According to a recent New Straits Times article, some 5,000 teenagers in Sabah drop out of school before sitting for the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examination. Nur Hamidi said that part of the problem is the long distances the students have to travel to and from school each day. The dormitory will allow for students to stay on the school premises and thus allow the students to better concentrate on their studies.
Nur Hamidi said, “Boarding enables the students easy access to school, whereby they only need to walk back home for the weekends.” He added that the dormitory to be built in Kiulu will be named “Asrama Donnie”, in remembrance of the late Donnie John Duin, the former Year-5 SK Kinarut student who tragically took his own life in March 2007 to ease his family’s financial burden.
He said, “As former students who have benefited from the boarding school experience, the “Killerbatch” felt that it was timely that we did something in return for the benefit of society. So we decided on this charity drive is to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Killerbatch; the students who attended MRSM Kulim from 1979 to 1983.”
The charity drive is a joint effort between Killerbatch and Sabah Credit Corporation (SCC) which, through the charity efforts of SCC’s Sports Club, will monitor and organise the construction of the hostel while the fundraising will be organised by Killerbatch.
On May 16, 2009, the first instalment of RM57,426.00 was handed over to the SCC and the groundbreaking ceremony was held the next day at the site in SMK Tun Fuad Stephens in Kiulu.
Nur Hamidi added, “We hope to raise the balance progressively within the next five months until October 2009. The contruction has begun early June and due to be ready in December, 2009. This will enable the dormitory to be ready in time for the new school year in January 2010.”
Among the events planned are a charity auction titled “I Miss You So Much – Our Hearts For Yours” to be carried out in August with cooperation of Galeri Chandan, and the re-staging of the play “Ghazal Party Queen” in December. “Ghazal Party Queen” was first run in 2004 by Angkatan Karyawan Aktif Kuala Lumpur (Angka) and was staged at the Dewan Tunku Abdul Rahman, MTC (formerly known as Matic), Kuala Lumpur. GPQ was written by another member of Killerbatch, Mohd Rodzi Abdullah and won the Cameronian Awards for Best Original Script in 2004.
For more details, please log on to : http://www.killerbatch.org
