Around six years ago, at a Maharani camp in Penang, Malaysia, one of the girls broke down during a sharing session and started crying uncontrollably. M. Barathy Devi who manages the Maharani programme for RYTHM Foundation sat down with the...

K. Sarvena first attended the Maharani camp at the age of 14. “It was fun and full of activities but as I was very shy I did not talk much and spent a lot of time quietly observing others,” she...

S. Swetha, 17 said her biggest accomplishment to date is winning the first prize in the inter-school drama competition held at Kuala Lumpur, last year. “I played the main role in the drama, entitled Efforts and Success. It was my...

Quest International University Perak (QIUP) senior lecturer J. Gogilavaani reluctantly stepped into the shoes of the Footprints programme coordinator when the initial person in charge left to further her studies. “I was only called in at the later stage to...

Reading about the frontliners battling the Covid-19 pandemic and risking their lives to save others made P. Kerrthiga, 16 realise that she wanted to become a nurse one day. “I am amazed by their work and dedication to help and...

Former Maharani trainer A.Chandra Mohan, 54 recalls meeting angry, disgruntled teenagers at the Maharani camps where he used to conduct trainings. “Most of the girls came from broken families. They didn’t have a good role model to follow or anyone...

Footprints mentor Jerrica Fatima Ann’s first meeting with her mentee Sri Priya, 16 was awkward. Jerrica spoke confidently in English while Sri Priya struggled to reply as she was more comfortable speaking in her mother language, Tamil. “Communication was an...

C. Jinesyah, 23 had always wanted to volunteer for a worthy cause but did not get the opportunity until she joined the Quest International University (QIU) to further her studies. “Through the recommendation of my lecturer Ms Gogilavani, I joined...

Clutching her examination results, P. Thenmoley could not stop smiling. “I couldn’t believe that I managed to score A in my Mathematics and English tests. Before this, my results have always been Ds,” she said. “Thanks to the coaching I...

P. Harshini, 18, lost her mother at the tender age of eight. She was raised single-handedly by her father who works as a bus driver at a factory in the small town of Sg Siput in Perak, Malaysia. “Despite all...

“I used to be ashamed of my dark skin and wished I was fairer so that I would not be the object of ridicule by my classmates,” remembers T. Inthra. The simple, quiet and frail school librarian was often ignored...

Mathematics teacher G. Nadarajah used to have a headache handling the discipline of the students in the school, especially with absenteeism and truancy with many of the girls not interested to be in school or forced to stay home to...