Located right next to each other by the bank of Sungai Pahang, SJK(C) Khee Chee and the Abu Bakar mosque have co-existed peacefully for more than 50 years.
The school built in 1920 had already been gazetted as a flood relief centre, but no one expected the scale of the floods. As such, the amount of initial supplies set aside for evacuees proved inadequate as more and more victims, comprising not just Chinese but Malay families, came to seek shelter at the school hall.
Overwhelmed by the unexpectedly large number of victims and scope of the floods, the mosque’s management and school did what good neighbours would. School headmaster Lai Teck Pin assigned his staff to buy medicine for families suffering from fevers, colds and coughs until additional supplies arrived. Badrulhisham Mohd Zaki, the imam of Temerloh’s main mosque built in 1963, agreed to lend the school the mosque’s large cooking stoves, pots and mattresses.
* Badrulhisham pointing to where SJK(C) Khee Chee is, beside the mosque.
The mosque also opened up its toilets and bathrooms for use by the victims due to the limited amenities at the school. “The co-operation between us was not planned in advance, but during a natural disaster all you tend to think of is how to help all the victims, regardless of who they are,” Badrulhisham, 41, said. At the peak of the floods, 456 evacuees from 134 families sought shelter as the river overflowed, flooding the school field and rising 3.6m at the canteen located below the school hall.
The Natural Disaster Committee comprising representatives from related government agencies took control of the school during the nine days it was used as a flood evacuation centre, but Lai and his staff helped out where they could. Groups and individuals, including a former mosque imam, also came here on their own accord to help give additional aid such as water supplies.
“We were just doing what we could and what matters is that we work together,” said Lai, noting how his school had many Malay pupils, including 38 out of the 109 who turned up for Year One yesterday. After the evacuees’ departure, a team of volunteers from the Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation of Malaysia spent two days cleaning up the school, which continues to be used as a distribution point for aid such as school uniforms and other supplies donated by MCA.
The mosque, which was luckier as the water only rose up to the top of the stairway leading into its compound, also continues to help out flood victims. Among others, it is working with a non-governmental organisation to distribute school supplies to orphans in the district.
“Some of the victims are still traumatised and come to me for guidance, and I do what I can to motivate them and get their spirits up again,” Badrulhisham said.