WAO ANNUAL REPORT 2009 - Women's Aid Organisation

There were two volunteer meetings in March and September respectively to introduce one
another and to learn more about the CCC. Volunteers responded positively and wanted to be in
the loop to know about the development of all the children and the activities. A book was
started to write up on each volunteer’s lesson plan and remarks so that the others could read
for continuity.
1.6.3 Intern and male volunteer counsellor in Child Care Centre
For the first time in history of Child Care Centre we have a male intern from Germany Philipp
Kaufmann working in Child Care. He is teaching the children and taking care of the children in all
their daily routines. He has been a good male role model for the children.
From September until December 2009, there was a male volunteer counsellor Lee Suan Seng
who came in every week Tuesday to do individual and group counselling for children.
1.6.4 Donors support the Child Care Centre
In 2009, we were fortunate to secure funding for the CCC from the Hong Leong Foundation,
General Mills Foundation and the Kuok Foundation. The Hong Leong Foundation gave us money
for 12 months starting April 2009 to May 2010, whilst the General Mils Foundation, (the latter
being managed by United Way International) donated their sum of US $ 15,000 to be utilised in
2009. Some OCBC credit card holders continue to direct their ringgit points to the CCC.
1. 7 Working with asylum seekers and refugees
Our work with the office of the United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees (UNHCR)
began in 2003 by sheltering two refugees and their children. The work expanded in 2004,
whereby, 2 social workers took turns to be stationed at UNHCR premises at Bukit Petaling to
counsel women who were traumatizes by a crisis such as sexual assault or domestic violence.
In 2007, in addition to counselling and SGBV training for the community, UNHCR had
approached us to do incident report taking. In 2008, UNHCR cut back on its funding. As such, the
incident report taking and the community training projects came to an end. However, shelter
services were offered for vulnerable women and their children. WAO voluntarily continued with
the scheduled counselling from the previous year for two months (Jan-Feb) at our premises,
wherein we saw 30 women with SGBV issues.
In April 2008, UNHCR approached WAO again to provide the SGBV counselling. WAO agreed to
support UNCHR by providing counselling services on an ‘as and when’ basis. In November 2008,
due to the increase in the demand for counselling services, WAO agreed to give counselling
services at UNHCR premises on alternate Tuesdays.
In 2009, WAO provided 50 counselling sessions. These cases involved gang rape, rape,
attempted rape, harassment and domestic violence. There were also other issues such as
difficulty in coping in Malaysia and depression.
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