Our Year One Student of 2010

This year, seven of Rumah Aman boys entered primary school Year One beginning January 4^th 2010.

They are Tuan Noor Umarul Amin bin Tuan Noor Azmi, Mohammad Ikhwan Shauqi bin Azwani Sham, twins, Muhammad Ilyas and Ilyasaq bin Mohd Azmi,, Muhammad Firdaus bin Hadiyani, Muhammad Azim bin Mohd Abdullah Sajat and Muhammad Faiz bin Md Saleh.

All of them are attending Sekolah Kebangsaan Raja Muda at Jalan Cempedak Seksyen 4, Shah Alam.

In addition, our six year old boy, Aidil Afiat bin Yaziz has also begun attending pre-school education at the same school on the same day.

We hope they will enjoy school and study hard.

New Website Offcially Launched

The new Rumah Aman website was officially launched by founder, Abdul Rehman Dakri on 31^st December 2009 to replace the older version which has been dormant for some time now.

The web blog was designed and uploaded with the assistance of a friend of Rumah Aman, Mr. Amir Shariffuddin in May 2009.

We also like to take this opportunity to convey our heartfelt thanks and gratitude to our former administrator, Ms. Saliyati Suhaimi for designing and uploading our very first website in 2005 and to Mr. Jamalus Ramli for creating our blog in 2007 in the absence of the website.

The launching of the new website http://www.rumahaman.com was one of the highlights of Rumah Aman prize giving day for the year 2009 to celebrate the children who did well in their studies and also for those who improved on their adab at school and also at Rumah Aman.

The children were excited and happy to see their pictures and profiles posted in the new website and also in the interactive CD, produced by the students of One Academy. Among others it featured a short video on the life of the children in Rumah Aman.

The event was opened with a dua by Mohamad Ikhwan Shauqi, 6, followed by a Quran recital by Asyraf Hakimi, 9 years old. The Masters of Ceremonies were Raziq Hafizi and Muhammad Arif, both 10 years old who spoke alternately in English and Malay.

This year the 6 year-olds, namely Muhammad Azim, Muhamad Faiz, Muhammad Firdaus, Mohammad Ikhwan Shauqi, Tuan Noor Umarul and the twins, Muhammad Ilyas and Ilyasaq were presented with a certificate of attendance for having followed pre-school in Rumah Aman.

The prizes to the winners for the sports and games were presented by Abdul Rehman’s mother, Mrs. Huri Dakri. The sports festival was held at Rumah Aman from 9^th to 21^st December 2009. The overall champion was team Yaqin. The other competing teams were Taqwa, Sabar, Iman, and Ehsan.

During the 12 days sports festival, there were eight indoor games contested namely table tennis for both the children and staff, checkers, scrabble, chess, monopoly, sahiba (malay language scrabble), congkak ( a traditional malay indoor game) and a jig-saw puzzle competition for the six, seven and eight year old boys and one outdoor game namely, rounders.

For the second year running Razman Azrai , 8, and Raziq Hafizi, 10, each won the best student award for their age group while Abu Hurairah,7, and Mohamad Nor Amirul Shah,9, came out tops in their age group.

Roslan Hamgalim,9, won the Most Pleasant Child award in Rumah Aman for his good adab, likeable personality, willingness to co-operate in all aspects in Rumah Aman, and is a responsible person.

Well done boys.

Rumah Aman Sports Day 2009

During the last school holidays, the boys and staff of Rumah Aman had lots of fun participating in the sports festival that was held from December 9^th. to 21^st. 2009, the longest sports event ever held in our five years of operation.

There were eight indoor games contested namely table tennis for both the children and staff, checkers, scrabble, chess, monopoly, sahiba (Malay language scrabble), congkak ( a traditional Malay indoor game) and a jigsaw puzzle competition for the five, six, seven and eight year old boys.

The children were divided into five groups of six members each according to their dormitory Taqwa, Sabar, Iman, Ehsan and Yaqin. Each group were joined by the adult staff. All games were played in a league format except monopoly, scrabble and sahiba.

The indoor games were played from 9^th. to 17^th. December 2009. Each group picked one or two players to be pitted against players from the other groups. The winners and losers were each awarded points accordingly that is 3 points for winning, 1 point if the result was tied and 0 points for losing.

The last competition held on 21^st December was an outdoor game called rounders, where the staff also joined in and tried very hard to give everyone a run for their money.

Everyone had lots of fun especially the children who were given a lot more time to play than attending classes. Heartening to note, they showed a lot of fighting spirit and teamwork and willing to listen to instructions to help their team win.

Congratulations Amirul, Raziq

Mohamad Nor Amirul Shah Mokhtar, 9, and Raziq Hafizi Mohd Tamin,10, both from Rumah Aman, came out 1^st and 3^rd respectively in a robotic competition organised by RC Planet Sdn. Bhd. at the Ikano Power Centre, Mutiara Damansara, Petaling Jaya on December 19^th 2009.

Rumah Aman had five representatives at the final rounds which consisted of 10 finalist. The other three boys from Rumah Aman were Muhammad Arif Fauzi, 10, Mohd Rizal Abdullah, 9 and Muhammad Asyraf Hakimi Zul Abidin, also 9 years old.

The competition was the highlight of RC Planet’s month long charity drive campaign from December 1^st to 31^st to create awareness on its robotics learning program suitable for children aged 5 years and above and also for interested parties who would like to sponsor other underprivileged children to attend the robotic classes.

The program themed Bringing Fun & Creative Education To Every Children is supported and endorsed by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development. The program will end on 21^st March 2010.

RC Planet being the main organiser and training provider had picked 10 children from Rumah Aman under its underprivileged sponsorship program who joined other paying children to kick start the campaign. They had to undergo eight lessons before the competition proper.

The program was declared open by the Deputy Minister for Women, Family and Community Development, Y.B. Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun who later graciously gave away the prizes.

Amirul received a cash voucher of RM500.00 and Raziq received a cash voucher of RM200.00 for them to spend at RC Planet.

CEO of RC Planet, Mr. TP Yeap said the campaign is held in conjunction with the effort by the Malaysian Government to develop the skills and knowledge in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics using robotics amongst the younger generation.

“The theme Bringing Fun & Creative Education To Every Child is to provide an opportunity to underprivileged children a chance to experience, gain and enjoy the fun, knowledge skills and understanding of educational robotics.

“RC Planet will also sponsor one underprivileged child for the robotic course for every paying child enrolled during the campaign period from December 1^st 2009 until March 21^st 2010.

“Caring corporations are encouraged to sponsor children from homes for the underprivileged as part of their social responsibility activities and in support of the campaign,” he said.

For information on the campaign and the program, please visit http://www.rcplanet.com.my/robotics.

1.Amirul (left) and the other children building their robots.

2.A trainer guiding the children in their work.

3.Raziq seems engrossed in his task.

Thank You Puan Nani

After dedicating every Monday afternoons teaching English Language to Rumah Aman’s children for four years, this new year, Puan Nani Rashid Ghows will offer her services as a volunteer at another orphanage and welfare home.

She will teach English Language at Al-Khadeem’s House of Hope in Lorong Rabingan, Seksyen 32 Shah Alam. She will teach the primary and secondary students.

A farewell party was held for her on December 21^st 2009 and was attended by the children and the staff. Founder, Abdul Rehman Dakri thanked Puan Nani for her effort and time and commended her for her good work.

“You are the only volunteer who stayed with us for four years. We are grateful and thankful for your support and I believe the children had learned much from you. I wish you well and success in your next endevour and may the children there benefit from you too,’’ said Abdul Rehman in his speech.

Puan Nani in her speech thanked Rumah Aman for giving her the opportunity to teach the children and advised the children to study hard and be focus in their studies.

“I’m sad to leave the children. I see their progress from year to year. I see them grow up in front of me,” holding tears in her eyes but continued to add that she felt it was time for her to move on and depart whatever little knowledge she has to another group of children.

We will miss you much Puan Nani and may your new students benefit from you as our children have. Thank you for everything. Please remember us in your prayers and do come visit us sometime.

Puan Nani (second from right) with some of the children and staff of Rumah Aman.

Recipient of DHL Book Drive

Our benefactor, the Truly Loving Company (TLC) participated in a book donation drive organised by their corporate buddy DHL, recently.

TLC included two of their charity partners, namely Rumah Aman and Shelter Home for children as beneficiaries of the drive.

The books in English and Malay were presented to Rumah Aman by TLC’s director Mr. Khaw Chay Tee on October 6^th.

The children were delighted to receive the books. It will surely enhance their general knowledge and help them improve their reading and spelling skills.

Pix 1: Mr. Khaw Chay Tee, director of TLC handing over the books to Mr. Khalid Shah, principal of Rumah Aman.

Pix 2: Some of the children browsing through some of the books received from DHL's book donation drive.

Visit by Young UK Musicians

Six post graduate students from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama United Kingdom visited Rumah Aman on August 20, and made music for the children.

The children had fun singing along with the students and the one that captured their imagination most was making harmonic noises to the rhythm of a beat-box music.

The students, Jonathan Ang (Singapore), Fernando Machado (Brazil), Felipe Souza (Portugal), Aiko (Japan), Letty (United Kingdom) and Preetha (USA) were in Singapore and Malaysia for a leadership programme which forms part of their school curriculum.

While in Malaysia, they were hosted by The Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (MPYO).

MPYO Senior Executive, Audrey Huey Lin Ho said, the students had visited the National Arts Culture and Heritage Academy and also attended a music workshop withn their peers at the Music Faculty of MARA University Institute of Technology (UiTM).

She said, the students were here to interact with local musicians in their age group without much assitance of musical instruments to produce a "very organic" kind of music.

Rumah Aman was their last stop before proceeding to Bali for a vacation and then for home.