20/09/2008
Pusat Jagaan Nur Salam human resource manager Raja Aziz Jaffar Raja Abd Latif (left) and (from right), Raja Azizan Suhaimi Raja Abd Latiff, Muhammad Ashraf Moktar, Wan Abdillah Wan Nawi, Nur Daliana Saifuddin, (third from left), Fatin Nurul Huda Mohd Amran, 12 (second from left) taking a closer look at the donated books with children from the centre.
KUALA LUMPUR: Like any other 12-year-old, Mohd Ashraf Mokhtar likes to read. He spends a good part of his daily schedule revising school work or reading religious materials.
Yesterday, he added English storybooks to his list of reading materials, thanks to a donation by the New Straits Times to a 24-hour activity centre for children in Jalan Chow Kit.The centre, which is open to children under the age of 18, is a project between the Federal Territory Welfare Department and Yayasan Salam Malaysia to assist, protect and address the issues that children face and to provide a "safe" zone or sanctuary for them. The book donation by the NST was part of its corporate social responsibility, meant to encourage more children to speak English while instilling proper reading habits in them.
One of the centre's founders, Raja Azizan Suhaimi Raja Abd Latiff, was on hand to receive the 200 books, collected from an NST donation drive last year.
"We are thankful for this as it will increase our reading materials and assist the children in improving their command of the language," Raja Azizan said.Ashraf said he could not wait to start reading the books, which included titles from Enid Blyton and others."I am happy that the centre is getting the books as I can improve my English." Also present at the ceremony were The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Bhd marketing senior manager Wan Abdillah Wan Nawi and NST brand executive Hafiza Zainal Abidin
