Disabled girl finds home

By THOMAS TAN

Newsdesk@thestar.com.my

MALACCA: Ten-year-old wheelchair-bound Poon Pau Yee had to stop schooling last year as there was no one to send her to school.

Moreover, her school did not have facilities for the disabled.

Her father, an express bus driver, only sees her at home in Port Dickson a few times in a month due to his job commitment while her two elder siblings attend school on week days and do part-time jobs on weekends.

“My best friend is the television set at home,” said Pau Yee, who became wheelchair bound after she was struck by high fever at the age of five. Her mother had since passed away.













Low teaching Pau Yee how to use a computer at the Beautiful Gate Foundation centre in Taman Merdeka Jaya, Malacca, recently.

It was a neighbour who brought food for her regularly.

However, Pau Yee’s gloomy days ended when her aunt from Bukit Beruang here told her father about the Beautiful Gate Foundation's centre for the disabled in Malacca.

Pau Yee has been living at the centre in Taman Merdeka Jaya since April.

She now looks toward attending school again in January.

“I’m happy to be here knowing that someone will be sending me to school soon,” said Pau Yee, who is tutored by Janet Low and Mark Chew, a disabled couple who work for the foundation.

Pau Yee will attend primary six at SK Gangsa, a special children's school at Durian Tunggal in January.

Beautiful Gate Foundation here offers training on survival for the disabled, self-development skills, and computer and bakery classes at its single-storey terrace house.

It is the fifth centre after Petaling Jaya (Selangor), Kepong (Kuala Lumpur), Kampar (Perak) and Seremban (Negri Sembilan) set up by the foundation.

Foundation chairman Low How Juan said the Malacca centre needed volunteers and drivers to help in transporting the disabled in a van and also a computer expert to conduct computer classes at the centre.

“A few students from Multimedia University have volunteered to give computer lessons.

“But we cannot rely on them totally as they have classes to attend,” said Low.

Depending on public donations, the centre plans to build a motorised gate and a roof for the vacant land beside the single-storey terrace house for outdoor activities.

The centre can be reached at 06-317 6461.

Source : http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/11/16/southneast/15859849&sec=southneast