Ronald McDonald Sensory Room Grand Opening
Children with special needs and learning disabilities in the Klang Valley to benefit from two new ‘sensory rooms’ provided by Ronald McDonald House Charities Malaysia
Centres funded in part by Malaysian employees of Royal Bank of Canada
KUALA LUMPUR, 17 March 2017 – Staff and beneficiaries from Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) Malaysia and representatives of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) today celebrated the opening of two new Ronald McDonald Sensory Rooms. Designed to help children with special needs and learning disabilities build cognitive skills and self-confidence, Ronald McDonald Sensory Rooms contain multi-sensory equipment to stimulate sight, sound, touch, and smell.
RMHC Malaysia has embarked on a mission to partner with educational centres throughout Malaysia in the development of Ronald McDonald Sensory Rooms. The latest rooms in the Selangor and Federal Territory Association for the Mentally Handicapped in Brickfields and the Taman Megah’s Handicapped & Disabled Children’s Home in Petaling Jaya, take the total to 24 sensory rooms now established so far across Malaysia.
The opening of the two new rooms was made possible through funds raised from the inaugural
RBC Race for the Kids charity run in Kuala Lumpur, which was held in October 2016. Over 1500 runners took part to raise more than RM200,000 in support of RMHC Malaysia.
Victor Sim, President, RMHC Malaysia, said the rooms play an important role in helping RMHC Malaysia fulfil its mission of creating and supporting programs that improve the health and well-being of children. “Since 1999, we have channelled more than RM2 million towards our sensory rooms program and more than 5,000 children have benefited from them.” Mr Sim said. “We’re grateful for the strong community support from the RBC Race for the Kids which led to the development of our two new rooms, and we’re looking forward to another successful fundraising event in 2017.”
Preparations are already underway for the second RBC Race for the Kids in the autumn. Andy Allen, Head of RBC Investor & Treasury Services Malaysia, said he was thrilled to see the funds raised from the inaugural event go to such a worthwhile cause. “RBC’s annual Race for the Kids is an initiative that we are very proud to continue supporting as it is part of our broader commitment to helping communities prosper. It’s wonderful to see our fundraising efforts make such a big difference in the lives of children with special needs and learning disabilities.”
The Selangor and Federal Territory Association for the Mentally Handicapped was established in 1964 to care for children and adults with learning disabilities. The non-profit voluntary organisation comprises three special schools and training centres that currently help more than 300 children.
105 children and adults currently live at Taman Megah’s Handicapped & Disabled Children’s Home, coming from all over Malaysia. Children under their care are disabled with various disabilities, including Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy.
For further information, please refer to the links below:
http://mysamh.org/
http://www.ppkkctm.info/about-us
Notes to editors:
About Ronald McDonald House Charities
Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) Malaysia was established in 1990 as a non-profit organisation and is one of 300 RMHC Chapters worldwide. It aims to positively impact young lives in the areas of Health, Education and Welfare through its four core programs – Ronald McDonald House (RMH), Ronald McDonald Sensory Room (RMSR), Gift of Smile (GOS) and RMHC Scholarship. For more information, please visit www.rmhc.org.my.
About RBC
Royal Bank of Canada is Canada’s largest bank, and one of the largest banks in the world, based on market capitalization. We are one of North America’s leading diversified financial services companies, and provide personal and commercial banking, wealth management, insurance, investor services and capital markets products and services on a global basis. We have over 80,000 full and part-time employees who serve more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the U.S. and 35 other countries. For more information, please visit http://www.rbc.com/.
RBC helps communities prosper, supporting a broad range of community initiatives through donations, community investments and employee volunteer activities. For more information please see: http://www.rbc.com/community-sustainability/.
About RBC Race for the Kids
RBC Race for the Kids is an exciting series of 15 charitable runs supporting children’s causes in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Trinidad & Tobago, the United Kingdom and the United States. Increasing in popularity every year, RBC Race for the Kids events have attracted more than 124,000 participants to date, and raised over $27 million CAD for children’s charities around the world.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Rosie Everard, Ryan Communication,
Yvonne Ball, RBC,
