By LIM CHIA YING

Chefs for a day

Eight girls get some kitchen experience for Christmas

They belong to an urban poor community in Taman Prima Selayang called the Yayasan Kebajikan dan Pembangunan Masyarakat (YKPM).

While their parents go to work to make ends meet earning less than RM1,000 a month, they are left at home on their own. Usually they¡¯re rather shy and don¡¯t have much opportunities for fun outings.

But thanks to Berjaya Hotels & Resorts corporate office, eight kids from the community was taken for a day of fun-filled cooking workshop.

With the help of the Yellow House Society of Kuala Lumpur who looks after more than 100 children from the community, the eight girls aged between 13 and 16 were brought to the Berjaya Times Square Hotel & Convention Centre for a cooking session with the hotel chefs.

The charity event was themed "Little Chefs - A Day of Bliss, A Time to Give".

Berjaya Hotels & Resorts director of marketing communications Thang Han-Ni said they wanted to do something different for this Christmas.

"It's no longer just about providing help physically and material wise, but more about internal needs of a child, so that they feel worthy and empowered," said Thang.

"And so, we thought of this cooking session. But that's not all. A lot of children today are on the receiving end, so we want to make these girls understand the importance of sharing which is why we have arranged for them to give out what they'd cooked for the hotel guests to taste.

The girls were divided into two different groups - one baked ginger breads and the other prepared the Christmas turkey.

Apart from the cooking session, each girl was also asked to take back five packets of the ginger bread to five persons whom they deemed as important to them. This, according to Thang, was done to teach about the value of sharing.

The girls had checked into the hotel a day earlier but only warmed up to their surroundings during the cooking session. Most of were chirpy enough to describe what they would take away from the experience.

Sisters Moghenesvari, 14, and Thashini, 13, who were in the turkey making group, said they would go home and share some of the cooking techniques with their mother.

"We celebrate Christmas every year. I like helping my mum bake cookies and d¨¦corate the house, so this time I can teach her how to make roast chicken," said Thashini.

"I will be giving the ginger breads to my parents, my cousin, and sister Dr Mok," chipped in Moghenesvari, referring to the Yellow House Society volunteer Dr Mok Kok Lang who accompanied the girls for this event.

The society is a non-profit organisation that deals with various homes and developed by the Malaysian Friends of UNICEF, which aims to bring children together through arts, workshops, and performances, while promoting a sustainable environment for their healthy development.

"The people from this community are ex-squatters, now they live in the government built low-cost flat units. The majority of them are Indians, and each household survive on less than RM1,000 a month.

"So we find means to help and sustain them, like assisting the children in their studies and helping to make their lives richer so they can one day get out of their underprivileged category," she said.

Thang said the event is a pilot project of a long-term goal that the hotel had set out to do to help girls from these kind of backgrounds.

"The key word here is empowerment and inculcating girls with good, enriching values. We are still tightening up the bigger project to be launched mid next-year, which would be primarily focused on them," she added.