Bethany Home: Reaching out to the students
By SHARON LING
sharonling@thestar.com.my
ON weekday afternoons, secondary school students can be found doing homework or catching up on various subjects in a house at Kenyalang Park in Kuching.
This is Bethany Home, an after-school centre set up by teacher-cum-pastor Cheli Tamilselvam and his wife Mei to give students a place to go for academic help and improve their studies.
The living room of the house at Jalan Chawan has been converted into a classroom while another area is set aside for homework and computer facilities.
Focused help: Cheli giving these students some tips for their studies.
Cheli, a senior assistant (student affairs) at SMK Bandar Kuching No 1, said an average of 40 students come to Bethany Home after school every day.
Classes are offered on Mondays to Thursdays for English, Bahasa Melayu, Mathematics, Science, Additional Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology for Form Three to Form Five. On Fridays, free guitar lessons and computer classes are available.
“We have a few volunteers who come in to help teach the students in small groups.
“Students can also come in to do their homework or revision. Usually, they will do this alongside their peers or someone from an older class so that they can help each other when needed,” he said.
In addition, Bethany Home has Internet facilities with computers and Wi-Fi for students to do their projects.
Cheli, who is also pastor at Bethany Ministries, said he started the centre in May 2002 when the students in his school asked him for help with their studies.
Concentrating hard: Chai (right) and Mok doing their homework at Bethany Home.
“Since then we’ve seen hundreds of students come here to study. They found motivation and purpose and also improved in their studies,” he said.
He recalled that the first batch of students at Bethany Home included four who scored straight As in the STPM examination, a result which had not been expected from them.
“Over the years, we’ve been able to help many young people who come from various schools. We want to see this as a place where young people can come in and find positive guidance to be purposeful, passionate and productive,” he said.
He emphasised, however, that Bethany Home was a place for learning, not loitering.
“We are very strict about this. We discourage the students from wasting their time here.”
Fong Che Chung, 25, is one of those who benefited from Bethany Home. Fong, who is now an assistant pastor with Bethany Ministries, said he had failed every subject in the SPM mock examination at school in 2003 before his friends urged him to go to Bethany Home.
“It was about a month before SPM and I had totally lost hope. But I decided to come to Bethany Home as I had nothing to lose.
“During that month, I came every day and studied mainly with my friends, who taught and helped me to understand the various subjects. Questions that I did not know how to answer previously started to make sense,” he said.
Guidance provided: Students attending a class at Bethany Home.
He eventually scored 2As and several Cs and Ds for SPM, which was better than he had expected.After working in a travel agency for three years, Fong decided last year to work full time at Bethany Home to help others the way he had received guidance.
Form Four students Joyce Chai and Mok Chin Yaw, who have been coming to Bethany Home since last year, found that it had helped them to improve in their studies.
“I started coming last year for help with PMR. I attended the English, Maths and Science classes here and it helped me improve and get better results. Now, I come three or four days a week after school to do my homework,” Joyce said.
Chin Yaw added: “I like coming to Bethany Home because it’s a nice place and there are people here to teach me.
“If I don’t know how to do certain parts of my homework, I can ask someone for help.”
source: Bethany Home: Reaching out to the students(The Star)
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