Teen responds to cry for help

Doing her bit: Kuan wanted to help flood victims in a tangible way.

AS disaster relief efforts were underway after severe floods hit many parts of the country last December, Kuan Yue Tong felt compelled to lend a helping hand, as well.

Seeing that her friends had gone to the ground as flood relief volunteers, she was motivated to join in helping the victims in a tangible way.

Her initial plan to take part in flood cleanup projects was, however, cancelled due to objections from her parents.

“They were not too keen on it because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic,” she told StarEdu.

The 19-year-old digital animation student then decided to draw on her artistic talents to help the flood victims.

Early this year, while taking a semester break from her studies at The One Academy in Selangor, she took to social media to raise money by accepting art commissions, with the goal of donating more than half of the amount to a non-governmental organisation involved in flood relief.

Besides fundraising, she hoped to spread awareness of the situation and galvanise Malaysians, as well as social media users from outside the country, to help those affected.

“I felt that most people were still not aware of how serious the disaster was,” she said, adding that she had dedicated the first four “slides” of her Instagram post to information about the floods before sharing details about the commission.

“I wanted to convince people to help or to donate to flood relief on their own accord,” she shared.

When asked how the response was, she said it was positive with her post, titled Save Malaysia From Floods, garnering over 1,500 likes.

“I could see from the attention and comments it attracted that people were generally supportive of this mini project,” she said, adding that some of the commenters thanked her for raising their awareness of the flood situation.

For the art commissions, she charged RM35 for a piece of artwork and customers could choose to have it drawn either in the style of anime, semi-realism, doodle, gesture drawing or cartoon. Out of the amount, RM20 per piece would be donated to flood relief.

By the end of her month-long initiative in January, Kuan donated RM110 to Mercy Malaysia.

Although she had only received five commissions, she considered the endeavour a success, thanks to the support of her friends and followers.

She said it was a good start for her since it was the first time she had accepted commissions.

“I’m still not entirely confident of my art but I would definitely be doing another project like this in the future,” she said. Kuan, who has picked up singing, writing, acting, dancing and drawing, has had a passion for the arts from young. It was only in 2020, however, that she started drawing professionally.“It was a rough start for me but I will keep doing what I’m doing because of how much I love it. I hope that other people carry on doing what they love, as well. It makes life so much more meaningful,” she said.

Jyllian, 19, a student in Selangor, is a participant of the BRATs Young Journalist Programme run by The Star’s Newspaper-in-Education (Star-NiE) team.