Refreshing relationships with our partners: July 2022 trip to Malaysia

“It’s great to have you in the classroom again, the children really love it” said the principal of Zomi Education Centre (ZEC) to Laurie Krepp and Tara Barmby after they had finished providing a class at the school.

The ZEC students were on holidays that week but had put on their school uniforms and excitedly come in for a school assembly with the WRS volunteers.  The assembly was a chance to reconnect after a two and a half year absence where because of COVID restrictions on travel WRS volunteers had not been able to make visits to Malaysia.

While WRS had continued to communicate and provide financial support to the schools and other organisations it partners with in Malaysia the July 2022 trip enabled the face-to-face communication to occur and for volunteers to once again provide classes.  Laurie Krepp, co-founder of WRS said, “Being back in the classrooms helped us realise the strengths of the friendships we’ve built, but also the tremendous challenges these young people still face”.

Laurie was accompanied on the trip by Tara Barmby and Ian Coverdale.  For Tara it was her first trip with WRS, but she is making the most of it staying for three months in Malaysia to work with the schools that partner with WRS.  Tara is a social worker and is delivering psychosocial support activities to WRS partner schools. Read more about Tara’s work in Malaysia here.

One of the focuses for the trip was to provide teacher training for students at the Ruth Education Centre (REC).  Many of the REC students will become teachers within the informal school networks that the Myanmar refugee communities in Malaysia have established.  Most of the senior REC students are already student teachers within the schools.  Pastor Michael Moey, the Principal of REC said “Praise God for the gift of education that Laurie, Kaye and volunteers from WRS provide to students.  The training they receive is of enormous benefit to their preparation to be teachers.”

After delivering a few training sessions in Kuala Lumpur to REC students, Michael invited Laurie and Tara to join the REC students on their three-day trip to the Cameron Highlands.  This enabled Tara and Laurie to provide several more hours training to the REC students.  Laurie commented, “The students participated enthusiastically in this contrasting environment and the intensive experience over the few days enabled us to get to know the students much better”.

Reflecting on the July 2022 trip Laurie said “It was fantastic to see that our communication with our partners in Malaysia was strong enough to see us through a two and a half year absence despite the many personnel changes that have occurred in our partner organisations.  Principals at several of our partner schools have turned over during the two and a half years and there have also been substantial personnel changes at the Alliance of Chin Refugees, with the Chairperson and Treasurer changing.  Developing relationships with the new people has been exceptionally important.”  

Laurie went on to list the achievements of the trip which included:

  • Reengaging with the schools that WRS partners with. During the two and a half years in which the COVID restrictions applied, one of WRS partner schools discontinued operations. As part of the July trip, discussions occurred with a newly established school, the Children’s Future Learning Centre, which has now become a partner school with WRS. WRS currently supports six schools provided by refugee communities in Malaysia.

  • Engagement and planning with schools to undertake the Digital Futures pilot which is training teachers to provide digital literacy and computer skills lessons to their students. Find out more about the pilot here.

  • Supporting the Alliance of Chin Refugees (ACR) to develop a Preventing Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment Policy which included facilitating two workshops with ACR staff and drafting the policy and supporting procedural documents with the ACR Chairperson.

  • Consulting to the leaders of Chin communities on advocating to the UNHCR about people from Chin communities not having fair or reasonable access to registration by the UNHCR. This involved discussions and developing tactics and negotiating positions with Independent Chin Communities (ICC), which brings together the five organisations that represent the Chin refugee communities in Malaysia.

  • Delivering 17 hours of teacher training and many hours of workshops for students focussed on strengthening their psychosocial skills and dealing with life stressors.

WRS volunteers are currently visiting Malaysia, and will visit again in early 2023.  On all WRS trips, volunteers have specific projects or roles they contribute to.  We are always looking for new volunteers, but especially those with experience in specific areas such as:

  • Teachers and trained educators

  • IT professionals

  • Community and social workers

  • People with experience in photography, media and communications

If you’d like to find out more about volunteering on the trip, you can contact us here , or make a donation to help us make an impact. 



Westgate Refugee Support