Putri Ka-Ching is not your ordinary superhero.
Her superpower is to give money to those who are struggling to buy food, clothes and other essentials to make their lives better.
Thirteen-year-old Putri (not her real name), the young person who invented the “local superhero”, wasn’t referencing the DC and Marvel universe. Instead she comes from an urban community which faces economic and social difficulties.
Putri conjured up a superhero to meet her community’s basic needs... money to escape poverty.
Thavarupani Subramaniam, a community arts activist, recalls how a group of young children in an urban poor neighbourhood last year came about with the ideas behind the superheroes such as Putri Ka-Ching, Tony Lightning (the anti-littering hero) and O-zo (eco-friendly warrior), who are the cute ambassadors of the Apa Pandang Pandang community arts project.
Apa Pandang Pandang, which was recently launched by social enterprise Goodkids Malaysia (Goodkids), is an interactive online platform, featuring art drawn by children from the B40 category during the pandemic.
“This website is truly something special... it’s a joy to see it brought to life online. All the lovely art, colour, energy and stories, they all come from the children, ” says Thavarupani, also known as Rupa, about this community project put together by Goodkids.
“When this project first began early last year, we saw a classroom initially filled with shy, quiet and wary kids what I had was two-hours every week teaching these kids art. Through the months of drawing sessions, I had an opportunity to build a relationship with them, to gain their trust, ” she adds.
In working with this urban poor community, Thavarupani knew that art could open doors. But it was still a challenge to get the children to stimulate their imagination and develop their self-esteem.
“Some kids were receptive from the start, others took time to warm up. Some didn’t even smile. But gradually as the classes went on, it was art that narrowed the distance between teacher and students.
"We shared stories and found out more about each other. The smiles, laughter and mischief made the classes fun, and at the end of the day, some of the kids were planning out super powers for the superheroes in this project, ” says Thavarupani.
Hundreds of artworks – happy, sad, quirky, disturbing – were created, with Thavarupani working on-site (pre-pandemic) and remotely once the movement control order came into effect last March.
She taught nearly 50 children, who live in a PPR (low cost housing) area in outer Petaling Jaya.
“The Apa Pandang Pandang website gives me a huge lift in spirits when I run through the art gallery and activities. It’s wonderful to see that other Malaysians can now discover this online project.”
Importance of reaching out
According to the Economic Planning Unit (under the 11th Malaysia Plan), 40% of Malaysians are in the B40 category, where the household income is less than RM4, 387.
In this B40 category, 56% of them are in the urban area with 31.1% of them aged below 18.
This means there are 839, 700 vulnerable children and youths, just like Putri and friends, in urban areas such as the Klang Valley.
For GoodKids, embarking on the digital route to reach its communities gave it a path forward.
“The Apa Pandang Pandang project gives a perspective on how life is for these kids, the daily challenges they face and how they are coping, ” says Koggelavani Muniandy, GoodKids’ co-founder, in a recent interview.
Online, their artworks have been vectorised and presented in various forms, including a video, an interactive game and a series of informational posts.
“Even before the pandemic, they were already facing lots of challenges like bullying, mental health issues and dirty surroundings.
“When the pandemic hit, another thing was added to their list of challenges, which is digital accessibility. Being disconnected from learning, since classes went online, they were at the risk of being left behind, ” adds Koggelavani, an engineer by qualification.
Koggelavani, together with her uncle Balasubramaniam Somasundram and his daughter Naaraayini, co-founded GoodKids in 2015.
Since its inception, this accredited social enterprise under the Ministry Of Entrepreneur Development & Cooperatives has empowered over 800 youths from the B40 community.
Out of that, 5% managed to enrol themselves into skills training and higher education post secondary school while 12% managed to secure job placements and are now independent.
Pre-pandemic times, the team at GoodKids would have been busy with their eight-month programme for these youths-at-risk which culminates with a public showcase performance
The programme utilises elements of the performing arts.
But drum classes and art sessions were no longer feasible when the pandemic hit last year, followed by various phases of the movement control order in Malaysia.
“Our students were forced to be indoors, disconnected from the rest of us and had no access to education. The problem compounded in a blink, ” says Thavarupani, who has taught visual art in the GoodKids programmes since 2019.
In the early stages of the Apa Pandang Pandang project, all that the team was able to do was contact the students and check on their well-being via their parents’ mobile phones.
“After a month, we knew we had to do something more than just checking on their well-being, ” says Thavarupani, who also handles web strategy and curation.
To get things started, the GoodKids team delivered art materials to the participating youths and provided them with instructions via mobile phones.
Using visual art, these children such as Putri, aged between five and 20, were able to express their feelings and struggles.
As the students don’t own mobile phones, the GoodKids team successfully applied for nine mobile phones under the YTL Foundation’s YES Prihatin Learn From Home Programme.
Through a crowdfunding campaign, they raised nearly RM8, 000, which they used to buy 10 phones.
Classes then followed suit, conducted via Google Meet, WhatsApp video calls and voice notes.
“In August, we started house visits to ensure students are not using the phones for things other than schoolwork, and finishing up homework. We found they were demotivated due to the prolonged MCO.
“So, we got a letter of co-operation to be signed by parents and we enticed the students with food and more art supplies.
"Then, from September to December, we organised a few online workshops to learn mobile photography, ” recounts Thavarupani.
These steps truly made a difference in the lives of the participating youths. As mentioned on GoodKids’ crowdfunding page, Putri was forced to stay at home during the MCO with no school and no drum and art classes by GoodKids.
She had to cook and look after her siblings while her mother tried looking for a job. Once the online classes resumed, Putri was able to draw, and she felt alive again.
How the website took shape
Things took a turn for the better during the recovery MCO last year and GoodKids was able to go back to physical classes, split into two smaller groups to adhere to physical distancing measures.
“This was when we got the chance to revisit some of the artworks and probed the youths to think a little further. Whatever descriptions you see on the website, it’s all from the youths.
“The initial plan was to have a physical exhibition at the end of the year. But post-Christmas, the number of cases rose again. We had to scrap that idea and stop our physical classes, ” recalls Koggelavani.
She adds that her team went back to the drawing board after that, and from there they decided to put up the youths’ artworks online instead.
After putting all the artworks together, the whole Apa Pandang Pandang concept slowly took shape, with its cast of young superheroes, “villains” and “hantu” (daily fears and concerns).
Over the course of the programme, Thavarupani says some students did fall through the cracks.
“Some parents did not think art education was essential. Some were not supportive in giving room for these children to join the classes. They would rather have their children do housework.”
But a bigger issue that the GoodKids team recognised, especially now that learning is mostly online, is digital accessibility.
Leave no one behind
“We realised that our manual way of conducting classes is not going to help us reach the numbers. This is why we have decided to set up the GoodKids Digital Academy, ” says Thavarupani.
This digital academy will provide B40 students access to digital literacy, arts, self empowerment, and mental health-related content for free.
“People might ask why we are trying to reinvent the wheel when there is already so much content out there on the Internet.
“The thing is, most of this content... the characters and narratives do not match with what we experience as Malaysians. The context is different. Which is why we need relevant, localised content, ” explains Koggelavani.
“We managed to obtain the Penjana matching grant for social enterprises early this year which is currently being used to develop the Learning Management System (LMS). This LMS will then host our content for the students.
“What we need now is funds to move our content on print to this digital platform. We need funds to create interactive videos, illustrations, copywriting, translation and to get some plug-ins needed to make this content attractive online.
“We hope to be able to do a pilot run of the content by the last quarter of the year and if everything goes well, we will be able to make this available to students by the end of the year, ” says Thavarupani.
Currently, GoodKids is running a crowdfunding campaign on SimplyGiving called Help GoodKids Learn Online. It aims to raise RM30, 000. At press time, RM7, 707 has been raised.
“Essentially, why this project is important is because we need to know what’s happening in our own backyard. Yes, there are many other challenges that we face in this country but so do these kids.
“If we become aware of this and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better for them, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
“This way, we can understand the role we are supposed to play in order for us all to grow together as a functional society, ” says Koggelavani.
Apa Pandang Pandang is supported by ECM Libra Foundation, Yayasan Hasanah and the Cultural Economy Development Agency (Cendana). Non-profit organisation Community Transformation Initiative is GoodKids’ community partner.
More details: Apa Pandang Pandang.
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