Life Bridge Learning Centre

I will add to this blog as I hear more.

  Yesterday (Saturday) I had to go on a scouting day for an upcoming field trip for my class.  Three weeks from now all the Grade 2's will be bringing money they have raised to a Rohingya school (called Spring Learning Centre) in Butterworth (about a 45 - 60 minute ride from here).  I will write more about the field trip and fundraising in another blog but wanted to write today about another school that we visited yesterday, a sister school (what I would call it) called Life Bridge Learning Centre.  Life Bridge is a school established by the Rohingya community who are refugees from Myanmar.  They are a group with no land to call their own in Myanmar and thus many have moved elsewhere, working as undocumented people, ie illegal immigrants.  They have no rights here or in Myanmar for that matter, including the right to access medical care or education for children or even protection by the law as they could be deported if they try to access any of this.  This community group has started therefore its own schools; there are three of them now in Butterworth (which is on the mainland of Malaysia, also a cheaper area to live than on the island of Penang).  They are all Muslim schools, but Christian individuals and missions (especially YWAM) have started to get involved in supporting them in different ways, ex. some teaching or tutoring, physical help like painting or providing some administrative direction, and finances.  Life Bridge Learning Centre has grown and they have had to look for a new location.  The two ladies I went with yesterday had me take pictures and I did some sketching of how the new school will be renovated inside as they measured and gave details of where things should go.  The new location for the school will open in January.

This is the outside of the school from the back.  Most students will enter the school from this side.  It is a four storey "shoplot" with migrant workers who live on the right of it (one of them is washing his clothes by an outside tap in front).  The rent for it is RM3000 (about $1000 / month.)

This is the front, bottom floor, of the school, where the Kindy (Kindergarten) students will enter.

This is a view from where the reception / front area of the school will be to the outside courtyard where the children will play during their breaks.  They will have to watch out for the laundry and laundry lines hanging up.



This is the top floor (all the floors look pretty much like this) where the Grade 4's and 5's will have their classrooms.


This will probably be the Kindy girls' bathroom.  (I could barely look at it to take a picture because it was so dirty and nasty.)