Shelter for child survivors of abuse in Malaysia

“Reena”, her mom and 4 other siblings came to seek refuge at the WAO shelter in 2019. Her mother endured more than 15 years of abuse. She stayed on for the kids and with hopes that her husband would change someday. But it only got worse and to a point that “Reena” and her siblings did not attend school regularly as the situation at home was unrest. One day, the abuse was so bad that it drove her mother to a suicide attempt. Her mother was referred to WAO by a doctor in the hospital after a week of recovery in hospital. They all became WAO shelter residents soon after her discharge.

After being absent from school for 4 months, “Reena” was transferred to a secondary school in Petaling Jaya. The adjustment was not easy as she now only was it a new environment, but the stress of the crisis her family was facing. She struggled in class as she had missed many months of class. What worried her most was knowing she had to take her PT3 examinations in September.

WAO arranged tuition for English, Bahasa Malaysia, Science, Mathematics and History. “Reena” was determined to do well although it was a tough having missed 4 months of school. Though she was disappointed with her trial results, we continue to motivate her to study smart. Closer to the examinations we arranged for more tuition classes with intensive classes for her weakest subject History.

PT3 2019 Subject & Trial Results

Subject                              Trial Results                 Actual PT3 Results

English                                        B                                     A                     

Bahasa Malaysia                        E                                     C                     

Matematik                                   E                                     D                     

Sains                                          Fail                                  E                     

Reka Bentuk Teknologi              Fail                                  E                     

Geografi                                     Fail                                  D                     

Sejarah                                      Fail                                  C                      

Her hard work paid off with much improved results in her PT3 examinations. She was very motivated and realised that she needed to continue to work hard to achieve better results. She knew that being the eldest of 5 siblings, she had to set an example to them. “Reena” is determined to do well in her SPM especially after seeing how difficult it has been for her mother to find a job without the SPM qualifications.

“Reena” also participated in all the other extra-curricular programs for the clients of WAO. With only 4 months of ukulele lessons at WAO, “Reena” was proud to perform for a live audience on 2 occasions. She also actively participates in all WAO sports programmes like futsal, badminton, yoga and body weight exercise classes. One of her favourite programme was Care2Run, a 10-week motivation programme.

She also attended the several WAO events for girls; Dream Big workshop with BodyShop, Love Your Body book launch with Scholastic & CRCM Report launch at Rumah Tangsi.

“Reena” has come a long way. She is diligent and very caring. She dotes on her siblings and is very organised. We are very proud of her achievements and the amazing personality she has.

“Reena’s” testimony: “I am now more confident and am able to come out from depression thanks to WAO. I have improved in my school work…..before I could not do mathematics and could not speak English, but now I can thanks to all the tuition and programme activities I have attended. I am now a happier me. Thank you WAO for helping my mother and us (children) from our abusive father and help me to go to school again….. for giving me a second chance to improve in my academic. Because of WAO I will continue to study harder and help my mother”

Links:

• WAO Official Website
• WAO Official Twitter Account
• WAO Official Instagram Account

Covid-19 hit us just as school resumed early this year. We had just finished Chinese New Year school break and more news about the pandemic was breaking. Right at that point we quickly implemented new hygiene rules to the shelter. For the kids, we had a special tutorial to teach them what Covid-19 is and how important is was to practice good hygiene. We also had a hand washing tutorial at the Child Care Centre to ensure all our kids were keeping good hand washing standards.  Our child-care providers ensured all school kids had their showers the moment the got back from school and all other activities. 

When the 2-week Restricted Movement Order (RMO) was announced, the children were sent to stay with their mothers. We continued to support the women and children remotely with food and toiletry supplies, medical treatment and educational workbooks. They were also offered to have counselling via Google Hangouts. Our dedicated Social Workers kept in touch with them frequently to ensure that they were not in any hardship. We arranged for clinic trips when any child or mother was sick. We also closely monitored the children who were home because of MCO and helped their mothers maintain a balanced structure in the children’s lives in terms of academic, activities, meals and hygiene. On that note, we would like to share a case on one of the children who had difficulty in accepting and practicing structure.

David was 10 years old when he came to WAO shelter in 2018 along with his mother and two siblings and he continues to be a recipient of our services under WAO Child Care Centre. Growing up in a home that saw violence frequently, being aggressive with his siblings came almost as a second nature to David. This was a struggle for David’s mother when David first came to WAO shelter. She had to manage his outburst of energy, in addition to the prevalent sibling rivalry among her children.

While David’s mother worked towards obtaining protection orders and job opportunities, David struggled to regulate his energy and adapt to the rules in an entirely new environment. We learnt from David’s mother that David is a very active boy who had a lot freedom back at home due to the lack of proper family structure and poor parenting skills.  As David’s father did not contribute to his family and comes home late being drunk. David’s mother on the other hand had to work really hard to make ends meet. This struggle contributed to the lack of structure in the children’s lives.

The first part of healing for many child survivors include establishing a structure which allows them to have a sense of certainty and security. In the effort to establish structure, we quickly enrolled David into school again and introduced academic and sports programmes. David, being a very active boy, he naturally excelled in sports. At WAO, we give equal importance to curriculum and non-curriculum activities. David had also represented his school at district level for athletics (running).

David always stood out in the crowd. He takes pride in helping adults. However, we recognized that David would not communicate the same way to children of his age. He had difficulties expressing his true emotions and his actions were a resemblance of the toxic masculinity in which he grew up. While he wants admiration of other children, being seen as vulnerable was unacceptable for him. As such, we introduced him to therapy to enable him to formulate and articulate his feelings and thoughts, and to promote self-control. Part of the therapy also included play therapy which promotes frustration tolerance and intervention in terms of installing appropriate interpersonal behaviour through modelling. David showed a lot of improvement in his interpersonal skills and almost entirely stopped physical violence. 

David is a very bright boy and had so much potential, yet his grades in school were not reflective of his actual ability. After trying out multiple interventions in terms of assisting him personally in academics, we assisted David’s mother to get him assessed at a government hospital for hyperactivity. Through that intervention, we were able to help David to focus better in his classes. We are very hopeful that David will also show good progress in the academics.

Now, even after leaving our shelter, David continues to be recipient of our services. David’s mother is very grateful to WAO for the interventions which are holistic and tailored to the individual needs.