GEMAS, March 31 — Redberry Group is on a three-day mission, starting yesterday, to clean up and give a new face to a religious school in Kampung Jelai 3 here.

Two blocks at Sekolah Agama Rakyat Felda Jelai 03 Gemas here were given new paint, had their window panes changed, and were fumigated this morning.

According to the group’s chief executive, Tho Tuck Woh, the initiative was the first of Redberry’s corporate social responsibility programme for the year.

"We chose this school because we wanted to do something different after focusing most of our CSR programmes on folks in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur.

"Those in Selangor usually receive contribution from various organisations and so we wanted to choose a place where they needed assistance and this school was identified as such,” Tho told Malay Mail.

This school is more than 120 kilometres from KL and is located more than 10 kilometres away from the nearest town.

Tho said the cost of repainting, changing window panes, fumigating and replacing several rotten doors cost about RM20,000. Fumigation was sponsored by Entopest. 

School principal Seripah Manap said the contribution from Redberry was timely given the dilapidated condition of the school.

"The school’s paint was deteriorating and the window panes were broken while some are missing.

"We are extremely grateful for this assistance by Redberry,” she said.

Staff of Redberry Group who took part in the company’s CSR event at Sekolah Agama Felda Jelai 3 in Gemas pose for a picture with members of the school, March 31, 2018. — Picture by Shafwan Zaidon

The school, according to Seripah, relied solely on contribution from the public and big companies.

"Salaries of the five teachers here are paid by Jakim, but the maintenance of the school comes from the contribution of the general public, including from our Tampin MP,” she said referring to Datuk Seri Shaziman Abu Mansor.

She said Shaziman would usually give the school an annual contribution to upkeep the school for the 111 students.

"For this year, he gave us RM4,000... it may not be much but it is still something to keep the school running,” Seripah said.