Hello!

We are Monica (27) and Magnus (28) and we are raising money for the 80 Myanmar children refugees we have spent three months volunteering with this summer. [Read more about our adventure and these incredible kids on a blog we have created especially for them: refugeekids.wordpress.com]

Although initially we were not planning on volunteering during our travelling in Asia, we came across this incredible project by chance and immediately decided to help. The 12 weeks we spent with these vulnerable children were the best of our lives, and if time and money had permitted, we would have liked to stay there longer.

Our role was to teach, mentor and support children fleeing from the conflict zones in Myanmar (Burma). In Malaysia, asylum-seekers/refugees hold illegal status, which means that these children cannot go to school, be registered with a doctor or roam free.

They live in terrible conditions, often multiple families in a small flat, and they are in constant danger of getting picked up by the police and either sent back to their home country (to famine, conflict etc.) or put in refugee centres where they are forced to live in inhumane conditions.

These children cannot have normal lives, and most of them have been through horribly traumatic experiences during the dangerous journey to safety or indeed once in Malaysia. This includes losing loved ones, starving, torture, violence and rape.

Despite this, these children are the most wonderful, intelligent, hard-working and generous people we've ever met, and being able to spend time with them, teach them about the world and helping equip them with skills for a better life was the most rewarding experience we could have ever wished for.

What are we raising money for?

We are raising money for school materials (books, notebooks, pens, backpacks, printing costs etc.) and to help repair and refurbish the school (repair holes in the ceiling and walls which let rats in, buy some carpet/linoleum to cover the floors with, replace the broken desks/chairs). Any surplus money will be used to buy cleaning products (soap, disinfectant) and food for the kids. Your donation can go a long way, as £1 (=4.5 MYR) in Asia can buy food for a child for the whole day.

To give you an idea of the conditions there, the school consists of two joint 3-bedroom apartments, where the rooms have been turned into classrooms. There is no outside space apart from a 15 x 3m patch of grass surrounded by heavily-circulated streets. The conditions in the classrooms are very poor, with rats, mice and bugs being able to get in through holes in the walls/ceiling. There is running water only in one of the two toilets, which are not tiled and therefore unsanitary and very difficult to clean. The rooms have been equipped with A/C but there is no proper insulation.

In terms of teaching materials, the kids do not have textbooks which they can take home, and the teachers use what they can find or have to follow outdated textbooks which have been donated by local schools/individuals. Some stationery items have been purchased with the money from past donations, but they are running out fast.

At the moment, the money for rent, the mini-van transporting the children to school, their uniforms and basic school materials are generously donated by a few local individuals. Local businesses in Malaysia very rarely donate any items to refugee causes, which makes it very hard to buy bigger items.

Why are we crowdfunding instead of fundraising?

As refugees are illegal in Malaysia, the school is not a registered charity. Please read more background on their situation and the school on our blog: https://refugeekids.wordpress.com/about/