Fr Julien Agape Centre

Education for the underprivileged children

In the beginning, this ministry started as an initiative to continue late Fr Julien’s mission to help the underprivileged children in their studies, from there God led us to discover many children suffering from abusive family background. Our mission has then extended from serving the children to include also the family in need.

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How can you help?

You can donate to us, keep the children in your prayer or better yet, come and teach the children as a volunteer. This will transform your life and bring love to the young ones.

Volunteer

Rev Fr Arthur Julien (1917-2004)

The Hisory

The struggle of children from poor family background

Many years ago, our beloved late Fr Julian started the kindergarten particularly in the Maccallum area because he saw the poverty and the need there. For the people over there education was not a priority as it was hard for them to access the opportunity for education.

At that time, St. Joseph’s Home was in operation but dominantly in English, so, it was decided to start a learning centre for mandarin speaking children here, moreover this place was vacant, hence, the learning centre was started especially for the children from the Maccallum area as Fr. Julian who started the Heng Ee kindergarten, we decided to continue his mission through this learning centre.

Our mission entrusted by God is to love and care for His beloved people.

We started the Fr Julian Agape centre in 2006 with the guidance of Fr Aloysius. We started with whatever resources we had at that point of time. Table learning method was effective and good for those children who were weak and slow in learning. We started with zero students, so we went on from door to door with the people living there and promoted our centre. The struggle in the beginning was intense because our centre is a mandarin based centre. We started the centre with an intention of continuing the mission of Fr Julian Agape so we were determined that the learning centre must go on. Then the centre started operating with 2-3 children with abusive family backgrounds, so our initial phase was with such vulnerable and traumatized children, we helped them to enroll in a school and offered help for the families in whatever ways we could.

We realized that children who are slow to learn and are under struggle need a different learning method. Thus, we revised the syllabus and cater the students with 3 languages which are English, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese language and additionally Mathematics. As we saw the progress of the students, we noticed that the learning centre wasn’t sufficient for the children so we proceeded to start tuition classes to help the slow learning children with RM10 a month for 4 subjects with a condition that if the attendance of the students are good the fee will be reimbursed at the end of the year so that the money could be helpful for the parents to start the new year. There are parents who donates back the fee for the centre which helps the centre to expand to accept secondary school students. But eventually, we had to stop for the secondary students as the syllabus for their level is tougher.

Collaborated with Youths and Charity groups to serve their needs.

YCS (Young Christian Students) came into Agape centre in 2009, many youths started to join our centre and we were able to come up with an education grant system, since then the centre started progressing well. At a point of time we found out that we have children from abusive families so we started reaching out to the family too in order to help them out with their struggle. We get in touch with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (SVDP) and now Caritas to help us out in terms of helping the families of our students.

We are but God's instrument to sow His love in the world.

Fr.Julian Agape Centre is more than just a learning centre, it’s a place where the children receive love and care from the teachers here. To get volunteer teachers is our main challenge, besides that financially we did not struggle much, even though sometimes we run low on funding we will somehow receive funds and aid, that’s how Great our God is. We had to move from a spacious place which was from the school to a smaller place which is in a house now yet we have all the means to continue by God’s will. By moving out to a smaller space, we can see how God has moved us so that we are being noticed by people and we have children joining in. There’s no fee charged for the students as we are operating fully on public contribution and funds, Fr.Julian Agape’s centre has never run out of God’s blessings.

Our hope for the ministry.

We are looking forward to the comeback of YCS to our centre to help the youths in this area. If the young people are not attached to any religious group or a good community then there might be no proper friends for them. YCS focuses on certain areas and moves with the focus for every 3 months, i.e topics on family, friends, relationship, future and other areas that concern the youths. 2019 was the last YCS gathering. There are youths who once were lost but found and grew up with YCS and they are in a good position with education and decent jobs. Hence proved, with good companions and proper guidance around, the young people get to grow in a healthy way and walk in the right path. The relationship among the YCS and the children have helped many young ones to feel loved and cared for. We are hoping the YCS will revive.

Calling young people to volunteer with us.

We are having challenges in getting volunteers or part time paid teachers, we are desperately in need of teachers as our learning centre is based on table learning where we need 3 teachers at the same time to attend students individually. We have syllabus and guidelines on how to teach and handle the students, so it’s not hard. Secondary students who completed their SPM and young people who are willing to spend 2 – 3 hours in nurturing the children would be very helpful for this centre.

Embrace the diversity and practice inclusivity.

We have students of all religions and races, so we will ensure that the parents are aware of our inclusivity and our practices here. We have an environment that respects all religion and races tradition and practices so that the children will have a safe and peaceful place to study.

The growth and development of our students here are not easy, they make decisions to continue their studies despite the struggle they face in their families.

Awareness

Love your family.

Materially poor but with a loving family, children grow up well and the difference is a lot compared with children who grow up in a family with poor relationships and broken marriages. We have children with abusive, addicted parents which affects their mental health badly, if they do not get a proper place to grow up then they might end up growing in the wrong path. There are children who are orphans and being raised by their grandparents, though they still need friends and an environment that makes them feel safe.

One thing that changes all these situations is love, when love comes first there would be no problems and struggles exist.

Being a follower of Christ, with whatever our ability we have we serve, we take care and we continue the mission of Jesus.

“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40

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Education for the underprivileged children