By Azanis Shahila
GOMBAK, 15 November 2016: The spirit of joy and satisfaction among the audience could be sensed even before the event came to a close. It was a “Humanity Night” held on Sunday (13 November) at Main Hall, Cultural Activity Centre from 8 p.m to 10.45 p.m in conjunction with the IIUM Convocation Fiesta 2016 (CONVEST’16).
The event, in collaboration with Projek Buku Jalanan Chow Kit (PBJCK), was held with the objective to create awareness about “the glaring social injustice towards the people of Chow Kit”.
Cikgu Siti Rahayu Baharin, co-founder of PBJCK said, “The streets of Chow Kit have become a playground for many children due to lack of parental supervision, a dilemma faced by many working parents.”
“What I hoped to see after this event is the awareness of people to be together with us to assist street children, offering them education, therapy, food and most importantly, positive opportunities in life,” she added.
The event started with musical theatre performances by talented actors and actresses from ‘Notorious Playhouse’ entitled “Crossroad”. The theatre showed, an often misunderstood situation, an under privileged young man from Chow Kit who always tries his best to give to the world despite being mistreated and judged by it.
Later, this was followed by an English poem recited by some children from Chow Kit and one famous singer, Nur Affina Yanti Jamalludin, known as Fyn Jamal. These poems captured the audience’s attention following the exclamatory sentence that showed excitement, a shift in tone from sad to cheerful and the contents of the poem that brought people to be aware of social injustice towards the people in Chow Kit.
Programme director of this event, Ammar Khalil said, “Hopefully this event will let people have courage to step forward to lend a hand and to be an agent in change in this project.”
“I think this event managed to achieve its aim by highlighting humanity issues,” he said.
The night was also cherished with inspiring sessions done by Cikgu Rahayu and popular artiste, Syed Azmi on their experiences with Chow Kit children and how Projek Buku Jalan Chow Kit was established. This sharing season drew audience’s attention by listening to their wise words and very great experiences.
The humanity night marked the closing of CONVEST ’16. Besides, various famous singers known as Caliph Buskers, Mark Adam and Encik Mimpi gave their performance at the concert which brought joy to the audiences. The hall was filled with excitement.
”I hope that the children will be able to be someone who are successful and be symbols of hope and possibility, of never giving up. I believe that one day, the children of Chow Kit will be able to declare their Chow Kit status proudly to the world,” said Cikgu Rahayu.***
