PETALING JAYA, 25 September 2013 – It was an exciting day for over 5,500 students in 24 schools across Malaysia when GAB Foundation came a calling last Friday to make over their schools as part of its annual ‘Big Day Out’ Initiative.
Now in its fourth year, GAB Foundation organised for 24 teams, comprising of employees and business partners, to ‘make over’ classrooms and schools over the course of a day.
Several schools received new furniture and fresh coats of paint while others received facelifts for their facilities. In some schools, ‘reading corners’ were set up and 32” LCD screens were placed in classrooms to facilitate a more interactive and engaging learning experience. Apart from repairs and upgrades, the teams also contributed reading materials, stationery supplies, uniforms, sports equipment and many more school necessities.
GAB Foundation’s Chairman, Dato’ Saw Choo Boon said, “Education has always been a pillar of GAB Foundation. In GAB Foundation’s 5 years, we have been able to reach out to 8,000 students from 54 schools across Malaysia. One of key initiatives under the Education pillar is the English Enrichment Training Programme. Together with a partner, we have been providing training to English teachers from rural schools on how to make their English lessons more interactive and engaging. This year, we decided to take an extra step with our Education initiative with the ‘Big Day Out’ School Makeover. We hope to make the schools that we reach out to even more conducive to learning.”
For the 2013 ‘Big Day Out’, GAB Foundation also partnered with Akzo Nobel Paints (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd which provided Dulux paint for the schools that were in need of a fresh coat of paint. AkzoNobel also sent some of their paint experts to provide handy tips on how to do the perfect paint job for the schools.
The Managing Director of Akzo Nobel Paints (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Mr CW Goh was delighted that the company was asked to be a partner of ‘Big Day Out’ and he even took time out to pitch in for a painting job that was carried out in a school.
He said, “Apart from providing the Dulux paint, we felt that AkzoNobel should go a step further by being hands on with the initiative, hence we decided to help out with the painting jobs. It’s great that AkzoNobel can do our bit for the schools. At AkzoNobel, we are committed to adding colour to people’s lives and we wholeheartedly believe in its ability to bring a transforming power beyond mere aesthetics and hope that with these bright new schools, students will be inspired to keep striving for brilliance in their studies.”
To ensure that the ‘makeover’ projects were in line with what the schools needed, the GAB Foundation teams discussed with the schools to find out their requirements. In order to carry out the makeovers, the teams did their own fund-raising to complement the nominal seed fund from GAB Foundation.
“We strived really hard as a team to conduct the best school makeover and it is our hope that the pupils will reap maximum benefit from this year’s GAB Foundation’s ‘Big Day Out’ initiative,” Dato’ Saw added.
