This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on August 13, 2018

AS Malaysia, the 48th member district of Kiwanis International — an international volunteer organisation — gets ready for its next district election on August 18 at Setia Alam, its main thoughts would be on love and compassion for the youth.

Globally, Kiwanis International has since 2010 pioneered, via its global campaign called “The Eliminate Project,” a scheme to provide tetanus vaccinations to women in 40 countries. The project is organised in conjunction with the United Nations’ children’s fund, Unicef.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded US$15 million (RM61.3 million) to the US Fund for Unicef toward its global efforts, in partnership with Kiwanis International, to eliminate Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD).

Iodine deficiency is the world’s leading preventable cause of mental retardation, with over one-third of the global population at risk due to the lack of naturally available iodine in the soil.

In an exclusive interview with The Edge Financial Daily (TEFD), three key personnel from two Kiwanis clubs in the Klang Valley — district governor Dr Mario A del Castillo from Kiwanis Club Damansara, district governor elect Ivan Oh from Pantai Kuala Lumpur, and vice governor Dr Laurence Lim from Kiwanis Club Damansara — spoke about Kiwanis Malaysia’s work at home and corporate sponsorship in general.

TEFD: What do you do in Kiwanis clubs?

Del Castillo: We are very consistent about this: Service to children is a primary focus of Kiwanis. But Kiwanis clubs decide for themselves what projects they would like to do in their community, based on their own community’s needs and their members’ interests.

Oh: We have consistently maintained that Vitamin K (kids) is our secret to a joyful life. We are located in 80 nations and we help our various communities in countless ways. We find that each community’s needs are different — so each Kiwanis club is different. By working together, members achieve what one person cannot accomplish alone. Rest assured: When you give a child a chance to learn, experience, dream, grow, succeed and thrive, great things happen.

TEFD: Kiwanis Malaysia has a strong foundation in helping children with Down Syndrome. Is that all that you do in Malaysia?

Lim: Our community projects are not just for children with Down Syndrome. But yes, I suppose our Down Syndrome projects overshadow what other group projects or other clubs are doing.

We have other projects for youths. There are not that many districts in the Kiwanis world that can claim to have as many permanent, high-impact projects as the ones being operated by our clubs.

Del Castillo: When it comes to providing service to kids in the communities, our Malaysia district can stand tall. The Kiwanis Job Training Centre, the CareHeart Centre, the five centres of Kiwanis Down Syndrome Foundation, to name a few, are among the most established service facilities in the country. We have a membership of 1,200 in 47 clubs around Malaysia.

Oh: These centres cost millions to build and millions to operate each year. This not only takes commitment, it takes life-long commitment. The key to our commitment is we build and maintain permanent centres with the support of financial donations. We look for long term. We always look for partnership with corporates. We are counting on more select corporate sponsorships to jump-start our CSR (corporate social responsibility) growth which started with the Sunway Lagoon Children’s Party.

TEFD: What did they do?

Lim: The event was sponsored by Sunway Lagoon Theme Park and the Sunway Resort Hotel and Spa. They sponsored a day of fun at the lagoon.

TEFD: What else in terms of corporate sposorship events have you conducted?

Del Castillo: With MBO cinemas, we had a one-day nationwide special screening for the children. This was when Kiwanis clubs from all over Malaysia brought their children to the cinemas. We did a second event with MBO as part of its corporate social responsibility. We had more than 3,000 children in their cinemas.

TEFD: What is next?

Oh: We are now looking for more corporate partners. One of the partners we are now talking to is Focus Point — they do spectacles. We are in further discussions on how to work together. Their CSR is for underprivileged children.

TEFD: We have spoken briefly before about the Kiwanis’ student leadership programme. Could you tell us more?

Lim: We have fine-tuned a plan to have a key leadership camp for the region. It will give us a broader range to disseminate the student leadership programme (SLP) because it is about youth leadership — we train youths to be service leaders. The idea has been submitted to Kiwanis International in the US.

TEFD: Kiwanis Malaysia is currently working with 29 youth clubs in Malaysian schools, are there any plans to open the leadership programme to all school-going children?

Lim: The Kiwanis programme is specifically school- and college-based. We do have a community-based programme as well. The school programme is for those from 11 to 18 years old. The key thing here is that a school has a protected environment, safety net for children, and we work with the principal. We are concerned about safety. Kids must not succumb to negative influences.

In schools we have a club as the mother or sponsor for that school. So there will be an adviser that works closely with us. We will help them with setting up the committee, teach them how to raise funds, ensure succession plan, plan ahead. Kids learn all these while they are a member of the club. We also organise two youth leadership camps a year where these school-based programmes come together.

TEFD: Del Castillo, have you anything to share from your term as district governor?

Del Castillo: Well, I am proud to say that in terms of charitable donations — Malaysia is number one. In terms of per capita donation to Kiwanis children funding, Malaysia is the top donor — the most generous. We have a couple of big individual donors. Even the clubs donate big during our annual games. So that is one accomplishment.

The second would be Malaysia winning a gold at the the Kiwanis International Convention in Las Vegas this year. It was for the signature project contest. Our Petaling Jaya centre was submitted as the Malaysia district entry and we won first place out of the hundred entries around the world. Another big accomplishment was the Asian Pacific Convention. We had 900 foreign delegates. What a party it was. Everybody still talks about it.

TEFD: Is Kiwanis religious?

Oh: Kiwanis is not a political organisation — our members have different beliefs, We do not endorse any candidate or political issue. Kiwanis is not a religious organisation — our members come from all faiths united in a desire to serve children.

The first club in Malaysia was formed on April 11, 1976 through the pioneering initiative of the late Tan Sri Mohd Khir Johari, who was a cabinet minister at that time. Fondly known as “Bapa Kiwanis”, Khir was the charter president of the Kiwanis Club of Kuala Lumpur.