FOUNDER ~ S.K. MANIKUMAR13 SEPTEMBER 1962 – 26 APRIL 2006 Mr. Manikumar was born on 13th September 1962. As a baby, he suffered from polio, the result of which was he had a visible shortening in his left leg. As a young man, he went to Taman Sinar Harapan (a home for the mentally and physically challenged, run by the government in Kuala Kubu Baru, Selangor) with the Sri Sathya Sai Baba Organization and did what he could to bring a little joy to the residents there. While volunteering his services at Taman Sinar Harapan, a thought grew in his mind: ‘why not set up a home for the disabled.’ With that thought in mind, he rented a double storey corner house in Taman Megah and started a home for the disabled, in early 1992. In the beginning he had four children in his care. He bathed, fed, taught and trained the children, he did whatever needed to be done for them. His vision was to provide an environment for the betterment of young disabled children, for their difficulties to be recognized and for them to be given equal status in society. Mr Manikumar believed in four key fundamentals, that the organization remain non-religious, non-political, non-government and non-profit.
As the number of children under his care grew, the need to set up an independent legal entity became apparent. In 1997 he officially registered the Pusat under the welfare as a non-profit organization. PUSAT PENJAGAAN KANAK-KANAK CACAT TAMAN MEGAH (“The Pusat”) is a company limited by guarantee and is incorporated under the Companies Act. From then on, 138 children of multi-racial backgrounds with various disabilities as he desired to provide the requirements for the special children’s all under one roof. The ages of the children run from 7 months to 55 years old and they come from all over Peninsular Malaysia. Just over a hundred of them are disabled while the rest of them are normal children from broken, abused or single parent backgrounds. He wanted each and every one of the Pusat’s children to be independent and an example to other special children (as himself used to say EVERYTHING IS POSSILBE, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE). All the normal children are of school age and about 34 of the special children go to school or vocational training. The Pusat is now a model for similar institutions. Undergraduates from various colleges such as Taylor’s, UTAR, IMU, KDU, Sunway etc, spend part of their community service time at the Pusat. MARA sends it’s occupational and MAHSA sends its physiotherapy students to the Pusat for practical training. All funds from the Pusat were single handedly raised by Mr. Manikumar. The Pusat needs about RM 60,000 per month. If that were not enough work for him, he drove the only blind resident in the Pusat to school in Klang each day and each night, while the most of Kuala Lumpur’s and Petaling Jaya’s residents slept, he would drive to the Pusat to check the children. Many of them were prone to fits and he just wanted to make sure there was no emergency. A man of great vision, he purchased insurance policies for the normal children to ensure that when they reached twenty-one years of age, they would receive a capital sum to help them further their studies. He dedicated his whole life fulfilling his vision, until he suddenly passed away in a motor vehicle accident in 2006, at the age of 43. Even on his last journey he was on the road to raise funds for the children. His death came as a total shock and left a huge void in the Pusat. In recognition of his services, he was posthumously awarded the NST – Price Waterhouse Coopers Malaysian LIFETIME HUMANITARIAN AWARD by the Hon. Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in December 2006 (which was suggested by Mdm. Lakshmi Ganesh, the legal advisor to the Pusat). After Mr. Manikumar, his wife R. Umah Devi heads the management to fulfill her husband’s vision. |
