PETALING JAYA: A retired Chinese kindergarten teacher, who became known for raising an abandoned Muslim child according to the Islamic faith, has received the 2022 Perdana Maulidur Rasul award.
The award is usually awarded to Muslims for their contribution to Malaysia, but Chee Hoi Lan was one of six candidates to receive it and was dubbed the “Ibu Sejati-Keluarga Malaysia” icon.
Chee, 83 single-handedly raised her adoptive daughter Rohana Abdullah as a Muslim after she was abandoned at two months old by her Indonesian mother, a domestic worker at the kindergarten where Chee worked.
In bringing up Rohana, she realised that the problem of race and religion would crop up and she worked hard to ensure that Rohana would never lack in terms of being raised as a Muslim.
She enrolled Rohana for Kelas Asas Fardu Ain (Kafa) at her own expense and made sure she got all the basic religious education she needed in school as well as guidance from acquaintances.
Her only wish now was to see Rohana tie the knot before she passes on.
Rohana had struggled to apply for citizenship since 2016 which impacted her ability to further her studies at the tertiary level.
Rohana’s citizenship issue attracted the attention of Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who had contacted her to assist with her documentation.
In April, Rohana received a letter granting her Malaysian citizenship status from home minister Hamzah Zainudin and is now studying computer science at Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM).
Other recipients of the Perdana Maulidur Rasul award are singer Syazrina Azman, better known as Mizz Nina, Dagang NeXchange Bhd group managing director Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir, Universiti Malaya lecturer Azizan Baharudin, executive producer for Islamic content on broadcast television (TV3 and TV9) Ahmad Noor Sulaiman, Yayasan Zikay chairman Khay Ibrahim, and registered counsellor Hushim Salleh
