We have connected 18 pairs of pen-buddies between UK & Malaysia

Updated: Mar 12, 2022

The first introductory session in Malaysia was conducted on 14th of July 2019 at Little Castle EduCare Centre, Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Kota Bharu is situated in the northeastern part of Peninsula Malaysia, also near to the border of southern Thailand. Among the 10 kids from Little Castle, we have a rich blend of Chinese and Thai ethnicity where they have been raised with different cultures background.

It is interesting to see these children from the same place sharing different types of festive celebration such like Chinese New Year, Loi Khratong, and Children's Day to their friends in the UK. They even speak more than one languages including Chinese, Malay, Thai and English, which is so different and eye-opening for the British kids.

"The kids are feeling excited and looking forward to the next letter writing session when they received their pen friends' letter from the UK."

Said Ciajin Lim, the founder of Little Castle Educare Centre

We also have winners from Little Castle in our recent PenBuddies Global Logo Design Contest, where you can now buy their designed logo T-shirt from our #TeeMill Store:

• Best National Design Award by Chua Yang Xing: https://uk-wisdom-foundation.teemill.com/product/by-chua-yang-xing/

• Emerging Talent Award by Lalitta: https://uk-wisdom-foundation.teemill.com/product/by-lalitta/

• Creativity Award by Lim Seng Chai: https://uk-wisdom-foundation.teemill.com/product/by-lim-seng-chai/

• Creativity Award by Lee Shen Yan: https://uk-wisdom-foundation.teemill.com/product/by-lee-shen-yan/

On the other hand during September 2019, we have also introduce #PenBuddies Project to two shelters (Shelter Home & Hiichiikok Home) supported by Havan Clothing, a social enterprise in Malaysia that selling T-shirts that designed by the children from shelter homes.

Malaysia is a country that celebrates its diversity. Whereas in most other countries there is a trend towards creating a homogeneous society for the purpose of national unity, in Malaysia the various races are encouraged to keep their ethnic names and their languages, to practise their respective religions and to embrace not only their own cultures, but fellow citizens'.

Through the partnership with Havan Clothing, we have paired 8 underprivileged kids from the Shelter located in Petaling Jaya, Selangor (About 7 hours drive journey from Kota Bharu, Kelantan). Among the 8 kids, we also have different ethnicity including Chinese, Malay and Indian, where they have shared their hobbies to the new friends from UK in the first letter.

"The mission of PenBuddies project in embracing diversity is very similar as one of our teaching syllabus in Havan Clothing's EQ learning programme."

Said Hany, the founder of Havan Clothing

Besides having more kids to join our PenBuddies project through Havan Clothing, we are also looking forward to collaborate with Havan Clothing in developing limited edition merchandises as our project fundraising campaign. At the same time, we wish Havan Clothing a great success in their business, to continue helping more underprivileged kids in the long-run.

General Information:

We have a wide range of global cultural topics to SHARE within a standard 30 minutes presentation.
We TEACH the children how to read the letters they receive and how to write a reply to their pen buddy from other country.
We CONNECT children from different countries through letters' exchange to their pen buddies, enabling communication across the world.

We have connected 300 kids from UK to other part of the world through letter writing (Approximately 43% of 4-18 years old children connected to Siem Reap, Cambodia; 40% connected to Chengdu & Hong Kong, China; and 17% connected to Kuala Lumpur & Kelantan, Malaysia).

Our aim in 2020 is to sustain this wonderful project with more support from the public donation and corporate sponsorship. You can now also SHOP TO SUPPORT from our TeeMill Store: https://uk-wisdom-foundation.teemill.com/ All t-shirts are made from certified organic cotton, without tested on animals and printed in the UK with low waste printing tech. They are made in a renewable energy powered factory audited for a wide range of social and sustainability criteria.