Dignity for Children wins Muhibbah Award for June

(From left) Petrina Shee, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dignity for Children Foundation; Datuk Ahirudin Attan, President of the National Press Club (NPC) of Malaysia; Reverend Elisha Satvinder, Co-Founder of Dignity for Children Foundation; Dato’ Kenny Goh, Chief Executive Officer of MACROKIOSK and Dato’ Henry Goh, Chief Operating Officer of MACROKIOSK, at a ceremony where Dignity received the NPC-MACROKIOSK Muhibbah Award for June.

KUALA LUMPUR, June 14, 2023: Dignity for Children Foundation’s work at helping 15,000 children over its 25-year history won the hearts of media editors sitting as judges for the National Press Club of Malaysia-MACROKIOSK Muhibbah Awards.

They chose this non-governmental organisation (NGO) as the monthly winner for June to recognise its efforts at providing holistic care, education and training of practical and business skills for urban poor children in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.

National Press Club of Malaysia (NPC) president Datuk Ahirudin Attan, in presenting the award, said NPC hoped to rekindle the spirit of Muhibbah and help create a stronger, more resilient, and more united Malaysia.

(From left) Datuk Ahirudin Attan, President of the National Press Club (NPC) of Malaysia; Renee Koo, Head of Marketing & Communications of Dignity for Children Foundation; Dato’ Kenny Goh, Chief Executive Officer of MACROKIOSK; Petrina Shee, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dignity for Children Foundation; Reverend Elisha Satvinder, Co-Founder of Dignity for Children Foundation and Dato’ Henry Goh, Chief Operating Officer of MACROKIOSK, at a ceremony where Dignity received the NPC-MACROKIOSK Muhibbah Award for June.

“Achieving these goals rest on our entire nation, and it starts with imparting that spirit on our young ones.”

“A truly Muhibbah Malaysia can only be attained through the collective efforts of us all, both in this room and beyond.”

“This month’s winner is truly a worthy recipient of the award as the judges acknowledge and reward their efforts at fostering goodwill and friendship irrespective of race, religion or nationality.”

“Dignity for Children has also been helping children of needy foreign nationals. This is exactly the kind of Muhibbah spirit that we set out to recognise and encourage,” he said.

NPC, together with enterprise solutions platform provider MACROKIOSK, launched the monthly award series in April to recognise any individual, group or organisation that best exemplifies the true spirit of Muhibbah in Malaysia. Groups of media editors take turns to evaluate nominees for the award.

MACROKIOSK Chief Executive Officer Dato’ Kenny Goh, in congratulating the winner, said the NGO’s efforts to break poverty cycle through transformative education have impressed the judges as they indeed embodied the spirit of Muhibbah.

“We hope this award will continue to inspire others, as well as impact the future generation, to further inculcate Muhibbah as our Malaysian way of life,” he said. Co-founder of the work and CEO of Dignity for Children Foundation, Petrina Shee, in thanking the NPC and MACROKIOSK for the award, said it was timely as the NGO was now marking its 25 th year in operations.

“This award will surely motivate us further as we meet the challenges of running the various educational and vocational training programmes, with other intervention and support programmes for our students,” she said.

From humble beginnings in 1998, when they rented only one floor at Sentul Raya Boulevard, Dignity is now spread over several blocks in the same area.

During its initial stages, the children were mainly from Sentul but they are now coming from Cheras and as far as Kota Damansara, where buses are chartered to fetch them.

Today, Dignity is a learning centre with more than 2,300 children aged two to 18. The NGO provides holistic care and education for urban poor and marginalised children in KL on two tracks: academic – from preschool (Montessori) to primary and secondary leading to Cambridge IGCSE (Form 5) or vocational (transformational enterprises in food, sewing, hairdressing, farming, etc) qualifications.

On Sept 30 this year, Dignity will hold a fundraising dinner at HGH Convention Centre to raise RM2.5mil in order to support 2,500 students next year.

“We hope more come forward in helping us improve the lives of these children who deserve a better tomorrow,” Petrina said.

The NPC-MACROKIOSK Muhibbah Award carries a cash prize of RM2,000, a certificate and vouchers from top regional lifestyle tea brand Tealive, leading lifestyle fresh market brand Jaya Grocer and top natural yoghurt brand llaollao.