KLANG, June 20 — A makeshift madrasah has sprung up on the upper floor of a seedy shoplot in Meru, where a group of 73 Rohingya refugee children aged between five and 10 gather around a young but haggard-looking man reciting from a worn Quran.

Some are seated at low wooden tables, scribbling with broken pencils on used notebooks gathered from a nearby public school, while others stare at their teacher, looking lost.

“Here I can learn to read. We learn science and maths,” Rofi Nasir Ahmed, 10, said when Malay Mail Online visited the Muiin Al-Islam madrasah, a centre for learning set up by Myanmar’s Muslim migrant community in the Meru neighbourhood.

Rofi Nasir Ahmed, 10, rides his bicycle as he plays with his other friends at the Madrasah Muiin Al-Islam in Meru, Klang, on May 28, 2015. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

Denied access to government schools, this shoplot madrasah with its bright blue walls and cheap vinyl sheet floor provide the best chance for refugee children like Rofi to get a form of education, and by extension, a sense of normalcy.

But to run a madrasah, even with minimal facilities like this one requires money. Learning centres set up by migrants however are not recognised by Malaysia’s Education Ministry and as such are not provided with public funds, which makes its operation harder to sustain.

“It takes about RM9,000 monthly to run the madrasah. But we never get enough. Sometimes we get only RM5,000 sometimes RM6,000. We make do,” Mohd Osman Brahim, the man who manages Muiin Al-Islam, told Malay Mail Online.

Mohd Osman Brahim Bin Hafiz Ahmad speaks to Malay Mail Online during an interview at the Madrasah Muiin Al-Islam in Meru, Klang, on June 19, 2015. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

No help from state Islamic authorities

The lack of funds have made it difficult for Mohd Osman to upgrade his madrasah into a learning centre that could provide the children with a better grade of basic education.

Most of the money will go to rent, utility bills and paying the three teachers a meagre salary of RM1,000 each while others will go to buying food supplies.

Mohd Osman said the source of their funding is from sympathetic Malay Muslims in the neighbourhood who donate to the madrasah while Islamic religious institutions like the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department have not extended any financial aid though Malaysia has a zakat (alms) system, which is meant for helping the poor and disadvantaged.

The madrasah is not only a school to the children, about half of whom are orphans, but a home.

“A lot of the children stay here. It is their home. So we cook for them,” Mohd Osman said.

“Some of them, their parents died on the way to Malaysia. Some had their arms cut and died in the camps,” he explained.

10-year-old Rofi Nasir Ahmed prepares lunch at the Madrasah Muiin Al-Islam in Meru, Klang, on May 28, 2015. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

Malaysia’s Home Ministry had previously denied the existence of human trafficking camps in the country but last month, 30 mass graves believed to contain the remains of hundreds of Rohingyas and Bangladeshis were discovered in Perlis, which borders Thailand to the north.

Human rights groups claim the camps were often used as torture centres to extort money from the family members of those detained there. Those who fail to pay have been reported to have had their arms chopped off or beaten to death.

One of Southeast Asia’s strongest economies, Malaysia has been shadowed by the high rate of human trafficking across its borders, resulting in the country’s Tier 3 rating on the US annual human trafficking scorecard last year.

Muslim Rohingyas have their lunch at the Madrasah Muiin Al-Islam in Meru Klang, May 28, 2015. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

We want to go home

Mohd Osman said he and every other Rohingya child here wish they could one day return home and live a normal life but at the moment, such a dream remains far-fetched, so it is important to work towards providing their children with a better future through education.

“What I only think of is their future. That is why we have this school. They need education too just like other children,” he said.

He added the students are also taught to speak Burmese, testifying to their desire to return to their home country.

“We want to go home, of course. So we teach them Burmese and Rohingya (languages). They must know how to speak their national language.”

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), for more than two decades Rohingya children in Malaysia have not had access to education until as recent as 2009 when learning centres manned by Rohingya refugees opened up here.

Mohd Osman said there was another madrasah about 20km away Muinn Al-Islam, but most of the area’s children did not attend as those with parents had no time to take them there.

A few Muslim Rohinya children pose for a picture at the Madrasah Muiin Al-Islam in Meru, Klang, on May 28, 2015. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

Many of the parents worked at a nearby wholesale market and drew law wages.

Brittocia Arulanthu, a UNHCR community services officer, had said in 2009 that “the absence of basic education among refugee children will become a handicap for them as they grow up, inhibiting their access to opportunities to better their lives.”

She noted that “attending school provides continuity and normalization for refugee children who generally live in vulnerable conditions” but less than a third of the estimated 8,000 refugee children of school-going age from all ethnicities, including Rohingya have access to any kind of education.

*Today is World Refugee Day.