Half a dozen mothers received special awards at the 9th Anugerah Ibu Kiwanis Charity Dinner.
MOTHERS the world over were honoured on Mother’s Day last Sunday. My attention was drawn to a special charity dinner at a leading hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Although I wasn’t there, I heard from the organisers that it was a big success. “This is our 9th Anugerah Ibu Kiwanis Charity Dinner. We make it a point to recognise the love and dedication of some outstanding mothers in raising up their special children,” said Firoza Burhan, president of the Kiwanis Club of Taman Tun (KITT) Dr Ismail in Kuala Lumpur which initiated the charity event. “Parents of special children need more support and disabled-friendly facilities so that we can bring our children out with us in public places,” said Burhan who has a learning disabled teenaged son. KITT is running a centre for learning disabled children. The club is in need of funds to run its outfit which is why they organise the special mothers’ award every year. The centre is working towards having a building of its own so that more learning disabled children can benefit from programmes to help them reach their full potential. Half a dozen mothers received their special awards that night. Here is a brief profile of the recipients: 1. Halimah Sulong’s only daughter, Khalijah Sulong, 25, has a mental disability. Halimah got Khalijah involved in sports from an early age. Today Khalijah has done the country proud by winning a bronze medal in the 200m sprint in the Special Olympics (for the intellectually disabled). She took fourth place in the javelin event in Kota Kinabalu two years ago.
2. When Hasipah Abu and her husband discovered that their son, Muhammad Hazeem, was autistic, they wasted no time in enrolling him in the best educational centre available.