Dato’ Dr Hartini Zainudin vividly remembers her first day at Yayasan Salam. She had walked into the place, small and filled with roughly 40 children, with one sofa against the wall. To the side, a small room filled with computers, none of which were working. A fridge was on the other side of the room and contained no food inside. “I just thought, ‘What on earth?’. You have computers that don’t work, no food, no snacks. 40 children, one sofa. Doing what exactly? I called my friends and said, ‘I need food. I need games. I need books.’” recalls the plucky 63-year-old. Till today, Dr Hartini struggles to say no. “I have a hard time saying no. I don’t know how to take the word ‘no’—to me it just means, ‘Find another way’,” she laughs. That’s why she never takes no for an answer, until she runs out of money, funding, or the law is there with someone to physically stop her.
And that’s exactly how Dr Hartini operates: at full speed, always on the go, and never taking no for an answer. I was lucky enough to have caught her in between her travels—she had just returned from Bangkok and was about to fly off to several other countries to attend conferences and talks. The previous day, she had been to the doctor’s for a thumb fracture. “I walked in and my doctor asked me, ‘What else did you break now?’” she laughs. On her previous visit, she apparently had a broken toe. Yet this barely slows her down.
Approximately three decades have passed since her first day entering Yayasan Salam, which later became Nur Salam and now, Yayasan Chow Kit (YCK). The foundation started because there were low-income, marginalised—sometimes stateless—children roaming the Chow Kit area with no safe space to seek shelter, have warm food, and simply…play. “If you notice, in Malaysia, like many other countries, there are no playgrounds in poor areas. Chow Kit has no playground. There are no kindergartens. There is no nursery. Adults dominate the only football field available in the neighbourhood. There’s no space for children to play in between the shophouses,” she says. That was how YCK started: to become that safe respite for these children to rest, eat, sleep, and get health and dental checkups. They could also come into YCK to take a shower and get little lockers for them to put their items. “These lockers were a space to call their own—something they couldn’t have at home. They could also do reading and writing, but it’s not a school,” she explains.
While YCK was established to be a safe space for children, Dr Hartini continued her efforts in helping marginalised children. Over the years, she has adopted several children from the shelter, including some that were part of a baby trafficking syndicate. Adopting these children intrinsically turned her into a mother figure, although she never initially felt that she had maternal instincts. “I just grew into it,” she says matter-of-factly. “When I first got married, I thought I’d have two kids, the white picket fence. Then I got divorced, and suddenly I’m adopting children. I didn’t come with maternal instincts…I’m still struggling. I make so many mistakes. But you learn from it and sort of grow into it,” she shares.
When Dr Hartini adopted her first child, it took her half a year before she let him call her “mummy”. To her, it was a sacred word. “Although I’m very progressive in terms of adoption, ‘mother’ to me still means mother. Being a mother comes with all its connotations; you have to protect, take care of, and love them unconditionally,” she says. That said, being an adoptive mother has been very fulfilling and grounding to her because, “I’m such a wild child,” she laughs. “I’m used to doing things my own way. Suddenly, I’m responsible for all these children; it made me grow up.” The saying goes that it takes a village to raise children. In the case of YCK and her adoptive children, Dr Hartini wholeheartedly agrees. “All the staff, volunteers, and friends of friends who are now my friends are YCK’s village,” she says. For the latter, she states, “My mother is the village.”
Currently, Dr Hartini is working on launching Madhya’s Gift, a new NGO under YCK that she’s been working on for the past six years. Madhya’s Gift will provide equitable access to health for marginalised children under six years old, whose families can’t afford critical care and health insurance.
As with most NGOs, Yayasan Chow Kit could do with the help of donations, funding, and CSR programmes. Head over to www.yck.org.my for more information.
Photography: Edmund Lee
Creative Direction & Styling: Joseph Cheng
Hair: Zac Lee
Makeup: Eranthe Loo
Art Direction: Shane Rohaizad
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