Raising outstanding children through value-added education, Grace Covenant Community Care claims to be Malaysia’s first systems-based children’s home awarded with ISO9001 and ISO14000 – international standards for quality management and environmental practices respectively.
The community care is housed in two corner-lots of an energy-efficient, fully renovated terrace in Taman Desa Tebrau. All eighty children under their care have roles and responsibilities in the home, as mapped out on organisational charts on the walls. The older children take charge of different departments of the home, including equipment maintenance and storage management. Founder Joshua Ng was a General Manager at an electronics company, and he used his expertise to design the home and the systems in it. Airflow, light, pest management, safety, no detail has been left behind. Despite lights not being turned on, the rooms are well-lit naturally. All rooms have leaders who maintain tidiness. Their most impressive room is the storage room – all items are arranged in a way where anyone can come in to retrieve what they need, not a job reserved only for storekeepers.
“I used to do engineering, now I do life engineering,” said Joshua, who gave up his high-earning career after finding more satisfaction and happiness seeing the smiles of children. For the past sixteen years, Grace Covenant Community Care has housed over 150 children and helped 500 poor families. Priority is given to single unwed mothers with no help to care for their child. Joshua emphasises that men must be responsible for their actions and not leave a mother and baby behind.
Affectionately referring to the children as his sons and daughters, Joshua has successfully educated eight of them to diploma and degree levels. His eight ‘children’ in IT Engineering, Early Childhood Education, Bakery, Event Management, and Graphic Designing fields, are in charge of social entrepreneurial businesses. A vegetarian café, a fruit shop, and a kindergarten have been established and run by them in a three-storey shop lot near the home. All of these places were designed and engineered by Joshua himself. They also have an annual Rainbow Run charity event, organised by his oldest ‘daughter’, where proceeds go to the funding of their tertiary education. Currently, six SPM students from the home are on a waiting list for university education.
A life-long educator, Joshua expresses his interest in many different fields and encourages his children to continuously learn throughout their life. Alumni of the home still keep in touch with him, sharing their life updates with the man they call ‘Papa’.
