By Fatihah Zaini
GOMBAK, 24 November 2017: IIUM-NAMA Convocation was officially closed on Monday (20 November) by the Chairman of Humanity Malaysia, Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, at IIUM Cultural Centre, with Humanity Night which was intended to bring hope for the Rohingya community.
Students, VIPs and artistes came to show their support to make the event a night to remember.
Humanity Night started off with a speech by the Executive Manager of IIUM-NAMA Convocation Festival, Muzammil Al Hajid Ahmad Nizar who stressed that there was still hope for the Rohingya people out there.
He said, “Let us all show some form of kindness and put a ringgit or two in the donation box.”
With the tagline ‘The Journey Begins’, the event was to show that the trip to the destination is what that matters, and also the things that we learned along the way.
The event was sponsored by Restoran Nelayan Gombak, Mosha Coffee, Yayasan Taqwa, Yayasan Geuntanyeo, and mainly by NAMA Foundation.
Additionally, NAMA Foundation had contributed an amount of RM270, 000 for the collaboration with IIUM.
The CEO of NAMA Foundation, Dr. Saleh Mubarak Saleh Bazead said that their organisation will help the Rohingya community in Malaysia in terms of providing equipments, monetary and capacity building programmes so that they could equip themselves with knowledge, skills, and experiences.
In conjunction with their partnership with IIUM, they hope that it will reach a bigger number of Rohingya community in Malaysia.
Meanwhile, the Rector of IIUM, Prof. Dato’ Sri Dr. Zaleha Kamarudin, spoke of her devastation on the Rohingya issues by mentioning that they had been exited from their homes, forced out from their homeland and brutally attacked by the military and Buddhist extremists.
To help the Rohingya refugees in Malaysia, IIUM will be having its first international programme under BUDI which is expected to be held between January and February next year.
“We’ll conduct our first international programme by going to Bangladesh and we’ll try to get students to volunteer to come with us.”
To make it complete, our own Malaysian humanitarian, Mizz Nina attended to give her TED talk titled ‘Making a Difference’. She shared her experience, when she started her hijrah after the demise of her beloved brother.
Mizz Nina also mentioned that she learned a lot from the refugees whom she met before. “The more I go out to do something for somebody else, I feel like it is not just me helping that person but they are helping me a lot more.”
Not only that, a popular nasyid band, Mirwana, also performed their song, “Aku Tanpa CintaMu” in support of the Humanity Night. A poetry called “The Answer” that was recited beautifully by Idayu Mumtaz also portrayed the love and honour that we require to help people in need.
Malaysian artistes like Irfan Harris, Heliza Helmi, Hael Husaini and Aizat Hamdan did their performances while stressing the importance of giving hope to the people of Rohingya.
‘Jangan Menangis’, a song for his father, was sang by Aizat Hamdan to mark the finale of the event.
Surprisingly, Humanity Night have showed that life is full of hope and happiness. ***