The Year of PBSNS

At the risk of sounding pompous, I believe in all honesty that we have not done as much in our 12 years history as we did over the past 12 months. Allow me to summarize the events.

December 2009 - we signed the sales and purchase agreement to buy our own building which is by no coincidence next door to the existing centre.

May 2010 - a charity golf tournament was organised to raise funds for repairing and renovating the building bought. We raised over RM86,000.

September 2010 - the new centre was completed and dedicated.

November 2010 - the Inner Wheel Club of Kuala Lumpur sponsored the purchase of bakery and cafe equipment and furniture costing over RM23,000. On 22nd November a bus load of ladies paid us a visit. Here are some pictures celebrating the moment.













A week later, on 29th November, representatives from Samsung Electronics Display in Tuanku Jaafar Industrial Park, Seremban, donated 2 plasma television sets of 42" and 50" sizes as part of their Care and Share Community Project. Here are some pictures of the event.















December 2010 - Finally, the event the fund raising taskforce worked hard to cap the year - the Fund Raising Dinner at the newly opened Silver Dragon Restaurant in Seremban 2. Held on 12th December, we succeeded in attracting 58 tables and several donors who were unable to come. Our guest of honour was Dato' Siow Chen Pin, State Exco member and on hand to entertain us was veteran Elvis Presley impersonator, HT Long. The event succeeded in raising over RM50,000 which included a contribution of RM5,000 from Dato' Siow and several guests who donated cash or made pledges at the dinner itself. It was a testimony that the dinner has indeed been a 'life changing experience' for many of those present.

Here are a sample of pictures taken at this auspicious event.

Chedang Cafe

It was a truly exciting moment yesterday when we unofficially 'launched' our latest pet project, the Chedang Cafe. The Chedang Cafe is no ordinary cafe. While it may resemble any other cafe that serves food and drinks, the difference is that the service providers are learning disabled trainees who are given the opportunity to learn and apply the knowledge of serving, greeting and collecting cash. Volunteers will help them gain experience and confidence as well as develop a routine comfortable to each trainee.

The Chedang Cafe has materialised because we have available space to develop it. This came about when the straw packing and card making projects moved over to the new centre next door thus giving the entire space in the first centre to the bakery and cafe project.

We hope that you will be our customers if you are in the vicinity. The trainees will surely love to serve you. Here are some pictures for your viewing.

Start Imagining ...

Things get clearer when we approach our goal. In this blog I am pleased to reveal how our new centre will look like as shown in the perspective drawings here. The 4th picture show the real building we bought and how we are assigning our project spaces. At the moment everything are crammed into the ground floor of the existing centre. When the new centre is done up, hopefully before the end of the year (if funding permits) we will assign the spaces as follows:

Existing Centre - Ground Floor Only
Bakery Project
Project Office/Teaching Room

New Centre - Ground Floor
Straw Packing Project
Card Making Project
Project Office

New Centre - First Floor
Admin Office
Conference Room
Teaching/Counseling Rooms (2)

A connecting door will be opened between the 2 centres to facilitate movement. Once the new centre is ready we will recruit additional staff and more volunteers. Then we will start accepting more learning disabled candidates into our centres to be trained in any or more of the 3 projects. Eventually we will have space for 45 trainees. But what we look forward to is that there will be some turnover of these trainees into the open job markets. Although we have sent 6 of them out 2 years ago we wish to see more employers in Seremban creating jobs for our trained trainees.

Every year some kids will be diagnosed to have some learning disabilities. These kids will need to undergo special education. Then when they reach the age of 18 and they have basic survival skills then we are ready to take them in to job train them. Not all learning disabled people can find jobs outside, their disabilities may be too severe to warrant any caring employer to employ them. We will try to provide in-house jobs and help them earn an income.

What we are getting at is that growing demands additional financing. In this connection our first major fund raiser this year is the PBSNS Charity Golf Tournament which I posted awhile back. There are many areas you can help in this endeavour. Here is a partial list:

1. Play golf at the tournament. Part of your fee (RM500) will go toward the PBSNS Building Fund to repair/renovate and equip the new centre.

2. Advertise in the souvenir programme for the golf tournament. RM300 gets you a full colored page publicity.

3. Free donation of any sum towards our Partnership Fund which is to cover our operating expenses. With 2 centres we estimate our annual budget to rise to RM100,000.

4. You can also donate equipment to the new centre. Details below.

We need 10 units of air-conditioners of various horsepowers. Price per unit range from RM1000 to RM1600.

We also need 20 units of ceiling fans, an overhead LCD projector, a notebook/laptop, a DVD player, a 32" LCD TV (for teaching/training), PA system, laser printer, photo copier, refrigerator, microwave oven, office desks, safe, filing cabinets, lounge settee, white boards, time recorder, etc, etc.

The total cost of buying all of these equipment will be beyond our head but individual donations, either by taking up the actual bill or giving a fixed amount to defray their purchase costs, will help a long way.

5. If you are a reader from overseas we encourage you to donate via our PayPal account link in this blog. Otherwise you can pay direct to our account below:

Account No. 3149145906
Account Name: Persatuan Berdikari Seremban Negeri Sembilan
Bank: Public Bank, Jalan Rasah Branch
Routing Code: PBBEMYKL

6. For greater peace of mind we are looking for corporate sponsors to commit their annual support towards our cause. If you can help please let us know.

Contact us for any of the above enquiries with email to:

pbssbn@gmail.com and state 'PBSNS Building Fund' in the subject line.

Thank you.