CSI

Educational, Welfare & Research Foundation Malaysia
Yayasan Pelajaran & Kebajikan Malaysia

PPM001-14-02011979

ADVOCATING CIVIL SOCIETY INTERVENTION PROGRAMMES

Speakers

Datin Noor Azimah
Abd Rahim

Chairman
Parent Action Group for
Education (PAGE), Malaysia

DATO’ SATINAH SYED
SALEH

President
Malaysian Assciation For

Education(MAE)

DR. JAYANTI
SOTHINATHAN

Head of Development &
Resources, LeapEd

4B, Persiaran Zaaba, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur.
www.ewrf.org.my | 1-800-88-3973

MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT

GOVINDASAMY ANNAMALAI

I want to express my gratitude to our speakers, Datin Noor Azimah Abd Rahim, Dato’
Satinah Syed Saleh and Dr Jayanti Sothinathan; the NGO representatives Devasharma
from MySkills Foundation, Naaraayini from GoodKids Malaysia and Aliza from White Lily
Organisation; CSI Facilitators and students; the Forum panellists Mr Pasupathi from
MySkills Foundation, Mr Simpson Khoo and ASP Siva Reddy as well as the hosts of the
seminar Dr Szarmilaa and Keshturi. They have helped EWRF to put up a wonderful virtual
seminar. I also thank the EWRF team who have worked tirelessly to put up this online
seminar.
The seminar on Advocating Civil Society Intervention Programmes is a timely one to
create awareness among the public. The Covid19 pandemic has caused numerous
issues related to physical and mental health, education, finance and the list goes on.
These problems are felt more among the underprivileged students. Therefore the need
for early intervention is pertinent. EWRF has programmes that are able to help these
students. I urge the public to help us guide these students.

Thank you.

MESSAGE FROM TASK FORCE LEADER

KETHESWAARAN NADARAJAH

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who has worked hard to help us plan
and put up this virtual seminar on Advocating Civil Society Intervention Programmes.
EWRF has been actively involved in providing intervention programmes for
underprivileged students in primary and secondary schools. These programmes have
been successful in leading the students towards a better future. EWRF needs the
public’s support to expand the programmes to benefit more students.
Through this seminar, EWRF aims to create awareness of the need for the intervention
programmes for this group of students. We need the support from the public to guide
these students to the right path and move forward to a better future. In doing so we will
be able to promote peace and happiness within our community. I urge everyone to
donate expertise, time and funds to help EWRF guide the students.

Thank you.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS

Datin Noor Azimah Abd Rahim

Chairman of Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE), Malaysia

Datin Noor Azimah is an accountant by profession. She has worked in Bank Negara, Price Waterhouse and Rashid Hussain
Securities subsequently obtaining a post-graduate Certificate in Financial Planning (CFP). She opted to leave the corporate arena
to raise her children and be involved in matters of education having held the positions of PTA Chairperson of SK Bukit Damansara,
and Vice-Chairperson of SMK Seri Hartamas. At the height of the debate on the Teaching and Learning of Science and
Mathematics in English in 2008, Datin Noor Azimah, along with a team of like-minded parents, founded the Parent Action Group
for Education Malaysia (PAGE), a national society, to defend and ultimately ensure that “pupils are to be educated in accordance
with the wishes of their parents”, as stated in the Education Act 1996. She was named among The Edge’s Ten Inspiring
Malaysians in 2013. She was a columnist in The Star and now writes for The Edge Weekly. She is also Chairman of the Elena
Cooke Education Fund that was formed by her alumni the Bukit Bintang Girls’ School. She was in the National Education Advisory
Council to the Minister of Education from 2018 to 2020. She is a member of G25 and committee member to Edunity Foundation,
its funding arm.

DR. JAYANTI SOTHINATHAN

Head of Development & Resources, LeapEd

Over 26 years working experience as teacher and teacher educator with Ministry of Education, Malaysia. Her work in the Ministry
involved heading initiatives under the Malaysia Education Blueprint (MEB) in teacher education. As a Hornby School Asia scholar
and certified e-moderator, Jayanti taught English within the context of using technology. She has developed language-based
curricula and various programmes to teach English in a multimedia-rich environment. Based on her research on language
education in the country, Jayanti has presented at national and international conferences (IATEFL, UK, Intel Summit, Vietnam,
Teacher Educator Conference, India, etc.). Jayanti is currently with LeapEd Services, a social enterprise, as the Head of
Development & Resources in charge of design and development of materials for LeapEd programmes at school, district, state
education levels. She is also the Project Lead for TSP 2.0, the company’s flagship programme in public schools.

DATO’ SATINAH SYED SALEH

Presiden Persatuan Persatuan Pendidikan Malaysia (MAE)

Dato’ Satinah is the Managing Director for Alpha Alsagoff Edu Resources Sdn. Bhd - an education advisory & consulting
company she set up in 2011. She is the Director for Melewar Learning Resources/Direct English. She is a member of the Board
of Governors for the British International School Kuala Lumpur (BSKL) (Nord Anglia Education, UK); St. John International
Schools Kuala Lumpur; and the Tenby Group of Schools and the Asia Pacific Schools (owned by the International School
Partnership Limited, United Kingdom [ISP]). She is the Chairperson for all ISP’s National schools in Malaysia. She is also the
Trustee/Advisor to the Vijayaratnam Foundation/RHYTHM Foundation. Currently she is the President of the ‘Malaysian
Association for Education’ (MAE) which is affiliated to Education International (EI); She is also the Deputy President for
Malaysian Children’s Aid Society (MACAS), and a member of Harvard Alumni. She is the Senior Advisor for Education
Transformation under the Empowered Individuals pillar of work at Impact Hub KL team on matters related to the ‘Design For
Change’ programs and other education innovation activities. She is also a member of the Learning Advisory Board (LAB), a
collaboration/ partnership between Impact Hub KL, the Ministry of Education and Media Prima in producing documentary series
called Majalah DIDIK (Magazine Show) which will be aired on the national DIDIK TV Channel.
She was a former secondary school teacher, lecturer and senior official at the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher
Education Malaysia. Some of her pertinent responsibilities at the National level include being the Secretary (II) to the National
Committee in drafting the Education Act 1996; the Deputy Lab Leader (Education) during the conception of the Economic
Transformation Programme (2010); and the Head of Project Management Office, Ministry of Education (Phase 1) in reviewing
the Malaysian Education System (2012) which culminated with the ‘Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025’. She was one of
the panel writer for ‘History for Nation Building’ selected articles from the forum ‘The Study of History: Its Relevance and
Significance’.

ABOUT CSI PROGRAMME

The CSI programme was carried out by EWRF for the past 10 years. Covid-19 and the
government’s MCO on March 18th, 2020 threatened to put all this to a stop and the future
of these children started to look worse and far more uncertain than it already was. EWRF
knew that this programme had to go on but wasn’t sure exactly when the schools were
reopening as CSI was always a school based program.

In July right after the MCO had been lifted, the CSI project team met and decided to carry
out the programme virtually for the first time knowing very well that many challenges
awaited them.

The programme would be called “e-CSI”, the electronic version of CSI and would be
conducted online for five days a week for a duration of 15 weeks, making it a total of 75
days of online activities. WhatsApp was the application of choice as it was free, widely
used, and familiar among the target group hence causing a minimum barrier to entry and
resistance for the target group.

These activities focus on 15 separate character building lessons, one for each week such
as the importance of healthy living & personal development that delves into personal
grooming & hygiene, the negative effects of substance abuse and bullying, and
appreciating each other’s differences.

Other lessons focused on entrepreneurial skills that touched on the importance of
teamwork, communication skills especially the benefits of being multilingual, setting goals,
financial literacy and the introduction to skill based activities to better appreciate technical
and vocational education as an alternative pathway offering more career options in the
future, all instilling various elements of positive psychology.

Six participants were assigned to one facilitator compared to the earlier 30 students with 3
facilitators. This is to increase the quality of delivery, interaction, rapport and relationship
between the students and their respective facilitator.

AGENDA OF THE DAY

TIME EVENT

9.30am Welcome Address
A. Govindasamy
9.35am President,
Educational Welfare Research Foundation
9.40am
EWRF Corporate Video
9.55am
Opening speech
10.15am Datin Noor Azimah bt Abd. Rahim
Chairman
10.35am Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE)

10.55am Keynote 1
11.10am Dato’ Satinah bt. Syed Saleh
11.20am President
11.30am Malaysian Association for Education
11.40am
11.55am EWRF
12.05am Jeya Kumar V
12.15pm
12.20pm Keynote 2
12.35pm Dr Jayanti Sothinathan
12.45pm LeapEd
12.55pm
MySkills Foundation
2.00PM Devasharma Gangadaran

BREAK
Facilitator & Student: 1
Facilitator & Student: 2

GoodKids Malaysia
Naaraayini Balasubramaniam

Facilitator & Student: 3
Facilitator & Student: 4
BREAK

White Lily Organisation
Aliza Salim

Facilitator & Student: 5
Facilitator & Student: 6

Forum Panellists
“Why your contribution matters”

Mr Pasupathy Mr Simpson Khoo Mr Siva Reddy
CEO, MySkills Foundation Clinical Psychologist Retired Inspector of Police

Closing Remark
Ketheswaaran Nadarajah

OUR COLLABORATORS

DEVASHARMA GANGADHARAN

MySkill Foundation

ABOUT COLLABORATOR

Deva’s early education started in vernacular school located in Kedah, north west Malaysia. His education
journey was blessed until could reach local varsity to complete B.Sc Hons in Human Development and
Management in year 2009. Deva was active in campus leadership roles and was also awarded ‘Vice Chancellor
Award’ for being actively involved in the varsity. Upon graduation, Deva volunteered and later worked under
EWRF more than 1 year until MySkills was conceptualised. Deva’s involvement as in MySkills founding
member’s leadership, the foundation had evolved from two storey shoplot into a 34 acre of Campus, located
in Kalumpang, Hulu Selangor (Malaysia) and gained public recognition such as tax exempt charity recognised
by Malaysia and United States of America.

ABOUT MYSKILL

MySkills Foundation was established in 2010 to serve as a sanctuary for youth at risk in Malaysia and allow
them to become responsible citizens via Holistic Transformation Skills Training (fully residential). The
Holistic approach had impacted more than 1500 youth over the past 11 years. The core training model
comprises of Life Skills (Emotional, Life Management and Social) which is complemented with Vocational
Skills (STEM). Currently, MySkills operates under its own campus measured for 34 acres that provides an
enabling environment for value-based education and market relevant skills training. By providing a new
enabling environment to youth at risk with value-based education (holistic perspective), MySkills strongly
believes it can lead to character re-engineering process generating desired human capital outcomes. Young
adults living in underprivileged conditions are usually academically weak but they have a high potential to
perform well in sports, vocational professions, arts, enterprising, etc.

OUR COLLABORATORS

NAARAAYINI BALASUBRAMANIAM

GoodKids Malaysia

ABOUT COLLABORATOR

Ms.Naaraayini is the co-founder of The Good Kids Project, where she teaches music and drama for teenagers
from troubled background and back benchers in school. Naarayini has been attached to Sunshine Cottage as
a volunteer and for many years has conducted camps for teenagers and coping method for social workers.
She also has a lot of experience working in the social work scene following the footsteps of her parents.She
has attended Kodaly Music training in Brisbane, Australia . She was a member of the Malaysian Institute of
Arts Ladies Chorus. She currently runs the Good Kids Train the Trainers and recently won the United Nations
WEP SME award for 2021.

ABOUT GoodKid Malaysia

The Foundation recognises that performance arts can be an effective medium to teach life skills such as
motivation and self-confidence to disadvantaged youth, who are at risk of dropping out of schools because of
poverty or dysfunctional backgrounds. And armed with these life skills, our youth will can make better
choices for themselves. In 2016, GoodKids conducted a 20-week programme for 70 urban poor youth who
underwent training in performance arts for two hours each week. All the hours of training led to an event in
August known as GoodKids League2016, whereby these youth performed in front of an audience of nearly
300. This programme helped build a foundation for the youth to understand teamwork, learn responsibility as
they came together to practice, and develop leadership and communication skills when they curated their
performances.

OUR COLLABORATORS

ALIZA SALIM

White Lily Organisation

ABOUT COLLABORATOR

She is an educator and a girls' empowerment activist. She has been actively engaged in the development of
the community through education and empowerment. Currently, she is teaching English in a national primary
school using various methodologies in and out of the classroom. As a teacher she is actively engaged in
action research for best teaching practices. She is actively involved in leading and implementing a variety of
empowerment, leadership and entrepreneurship programs for young girls in Malaysia. Her expertise is in
designing modules for girls' empowerment and advocacy as well as networking for fundraising and outreach
purposes.

ABOUT White Lily Organisation

White Lily Organisation is an NGO that focuses on girls’ empowerment projects with modules created to cater
to the current needs of girls such as hygiene education, self-defense, body confidence, skill development as
well as sex education. It started of as a project on its own in Penang, funded by the state government with the
collaboration of Women’s Centre for Change (WCC). Now, it is a registered NGO that conducts workshops and
programs in schools as well as PPR, mainly PPR Taman Wahyu, Selayang.
.

OUR FACILITATORS AND STUDENT

SHALINI KASINATHAN NITISH GUNALAN
EWRF PENANG
SMK TMN PERWIRA, PENANG

PAVIINA KUMARESU
EWRF TG MALIM

SHAMALASRI ELAMKOVAN SUBODHINI SIVANANDHA
EWRF RAWANG
SMK SUNGAI CHOH, SELANGOR
REVATHI MINAIAH
EWRF KAJANG THILAGA GANESHAN

NURFARAHIN SMK TMN SRI MUDA, SELANGOR
EWRF SUBANG

LAVANYA KARUNAMURTHI
EWRF HULU SELANGOR

MALLIGA SUBRAMAIN KALAIARASAN
EWRF TG MALIM
LOGANATHAN
HAARISH KUMAR SELVARAJU
EWRF TG MALIM SMK KULAI BESAR, JOHOR

SITI FAUZIAH BTE ISMAIL
EWRF TG MALIM

OUR FORUM PANELIST THE MODERATOR

DR. JAYANTI
SOTHINATHAN

PASUPATHI SITHAMPARAM

MYSKILLS DIRECTOR

He holds a degree in Chemical Technology from UKM. He went on to read law in University of Wales and is a practicing lawyer since 1990.
Being a social activist, he is actively involved in various social organizations; namely being the Founder Member and President of Tamil
Foundation.

SIMPSON KHOO

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST & EDUCATIONAL ADVOCATE

M.Ed. (Manchester), M.ClinPsy (Cyberjaya), MBPsS(UK)
Simpson holds master’s degree in Psychology of Education from The University of Manchester, U.K. and Master in Clinical Psychology
from University of Cyberjaya, Malaysia. He is a registered clinical psychologist with Malaysian Society of Clinical Psychology and a
member of British Psychological Society. He provides training and consultation to NGOs, educational institutions, and corporations as
well as mentoring youth at-risk. He has organised community-based educational intervention programmes and some of his students from
urban poor communities have excelled and completed their tertiary education. He also volunteers with different NGOs to provide
psychosocial support to communities including post-earthquake relief works in Indonesia and most recently, mental health helpline for
Covid-19 in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. Simpson is also an adjunct lecturer in training special education teachers. His
works in education, at-risk youth and urban poor communities had been featured in The Star, News Straits Times, radio channels and
other media.

Mr Siva Reddy

RETIRED INSPECTOR OF POLICE

asdasda

RAJSURIAN PILLAI

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST & EDUCATIONAL ADVOCATE

Rajasurian Pillai is the Managing Partner of Messrs.Surian. He is a criminal Law practitioner who has represented clients ranging from high
profile individuals and activists. Furthermore he is also an elected member of the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee and chairs its Pupil sub-
committee.