IPOH, Sept 18 — Lee Su Win has never sung in front of a crowd before.
But this Saturday, she will be doing so as part of a choir in the name of charity for the Perak Women for Women (PWW).
Lee said she initially refused to be roped in.
“But my name was volunteered by PWW co-founder and secretary-general Yip Siew Keen so I just went with the flow,” she said.
Speaking to Malay Mail, Lee said although she was nervous over the thought of performing in front of a crowd, she was still raring to give it a go.
“As I am doing it for charity,” said the former Malaysian Nature Society employee.
The choir has been practising for the past two months.
PWW’s services, among others, are to defend women’s rights, promote awareness on violence against women and respect for gender equality and counselling for women and children who are victims of violence.
They also seek to promote change in society and the legal system to protect women and children besides empowering women to elevate themselves and be more independent. Its choir leader Cheryl Teh has been making trips to Ipoh every fortnight to train the group of women.
While the group will consist of 35 people, Teh said 25 of them will be from Kuala Lumpur.
“Due to the logistics, the Ipoh group trains three hours every two weeks while the Kuala Lumpur group trains weekly for two hours,” she said.
Teh said the group, who are aged between 50 and 60 years, have no musical background.
“They do not read notes. They just join us to sing for their wellness,” said Teh, who was formerly with the Philharmonic Society of Selangor.
Teh, who now runs community choirs, currently has three groups of choir under her.
“The 25 are part of the three groups,” she added, noting that they were raring to join the performance in Ipoh as it would give them an opportunity to travel outside of Kuala Lumpur and perform for charity.
Teh said the group will be singing five songs that revolves around the moon theme.
“Only one song will be in Chinese while the rest are English songs,” she said.
Yip said the fund raising activity was to sustain the society’s activities for the coming year.
“We will also be carrying out minor renovations on the first floor of our shop where we will turn it into our administrative office, counselling and activity room,” she said, adding that the society hoped to raise RM70,000 through the event.
Besides the choir performance, there will also be dances and opera.
Yip said tables are priced between RM1,200 and RM5,000.
“It will be an eight-course Chinese dinner, that is halal,” she said, adding that tickets were still available.
Yip said guests would also be given door gifts, of which one of the sponsors would be Imperial Garments.
Imperial Garments operator human capital management and administration director Felicia Chea said the company decided to come forward to contribute as what PWW was doing was an honourable effort to help abused women.
She said the company sponsored car seat covers, tote bags and wallets that are made from balanced materials.
“When we told our operators they are helping abused women, they too were excited to chip in,” she said.
For details on the dinner, contact PWW (05-2469715).
PWW also runs a shop that sells products made by domestic violence victims including candles, Penan handwoven baskets and three-tier hand-painted enamel tiffin carriers.
