When her father - a recurring offender - was jailed for 2.5 years in 2008, Ms Hazirah Ismail felt alienated from her school friends. Her mother, who had taken on on a string of jobs to feed her and her two siblings, had little time to attend to her emotional needs.
Then seven years old, Ms Hazirah got her confidence back with help from the Yellow Ribbon Fund and the Industrial and Services Co-operative Society (ISCOS), which both help former offenders. Their Fairy Godparent Programme (FGP) provided bursaries and held activities so she could find new friends.
Yesterday, the programme was given a boost with more than $500,000 in new sponsorship - with the charitable organization Trafigura Foundation contributing $200,000 and the industrial vehicle leasing entity Goldbell Group putting in just over $300,000. The programme, launched in 2006, also aims to provide academic assistance to the children of former offenders. It gives out bursaries, conducts workshops and holds family bonding activities.
The new sponsorship will go towards helping the programme's yearly 1,000 beneficiaries such as Ms Hazirah.
Thoughts:
- Yellow Ribbon Project is a meaningful way for the society to help ex-offenders to re-integrate back into the society and also to help their family members who are affected due to the loss of income and support at home.
- I am happy to see that there are funders who came in to help chip in for other kinds of needs of such families, such as education in this article. Some of these sponsors might/ might not support programmes for ex-offenders, but at least they do recognize that there those family members that were caught in the situation and provide this help.
Thoughts anyone?
Yours,
Something Small Thinking Big
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