AUGUST 19 — On August 31, our beloved Malaysia will turn 67 years old. Cries of Merdeka will ring anew across the land, and we will celebrate the infinite bounties of independence with prayers and gratitude. It is a privilege to belong and call somewhere home from which no one can evict you or harass you into leaving.

Over six decades ago, we not only achieved the liberation of body and spirit from the chafing yoke of colonialism, but we also gained something priceless: hope for the future.

Casting off the shackles of servitude, we ventured forth to carve a shining path for ourselves as a nation. Now, it is our moral responsibility to pay that hope forward. We must empower those around us who languish in feelings of inferiority and abandonment and cannot themselves overcome this darkness.

Equal access to education is key to uplifting the deprived and disheartened, for it can radically reshape an individual’s outlook on life. It is the bulletproof vest shielding society from ideas and iconoclasts who seek to sow discord and poison minds. It is the metaphorical pen that is mightier than the sword.

Let us not forget our history, the deep yearning of our forebears to reclaim our human dignity from foreign masters who treated us like dirt. Let us reach out a helping hand to those who subsist on the margins of society: the stateless, the refugees, the Orang Asli.

Unicef has long urged Malaysia to "address the total lack of educational access for refugee and stateless children in the country.” At home, the Seed Community for Orang Asli says, "Orang Asli students continue to encounter significant barriers to accessing quality education, which severely impacts their academic progress and overall well-being.” This state of affairs is regressive and unbecoming of our great nation.

If we accept that education is the gateway to global prosperity and that children are the keepers of the future, we cannot allow these groups to grope at life blindly without the illumination of learning. We can no longer play accomplices in perpetuating ignorance.

Nor can we continue to apply the self-serving dictum that such peoples are outside the social membrane of what makes a Malaysian. In our multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, with its rich migratory tradition, few can plot an indisputable family tree to prove they are pure sons and daughters of the soil.

Any society is only as strong as its weakest link. We who are given the freedom to dream and the grace to prosper have overlooked this need in those we consider aliens. We launch ourselves eagerly toward any cause that purports to preserve the planet, yet we display a most casual indifference to preserving human dignity.

When we speak of inclusivity, we cannot decide its parameters at our convenience. Either we are inclusive in education for all who dwell within our borders, or we aren’t. If we truly value Merdeka in letter and spirit, we must endeavor to share its blessings with the underprivileged. Early childhood intervention programmes, for instance, have well-documented success stories from around the world.

These programmes have produced many positive outcomes, most notably a reduction in juvenile delinquency and higher levels of scholastic and socioeconomic achievement. Among them, the famous High/Scope Perry Preschool Program in the US from the 1960s was based on an active learning model that emphasised children’s cognitive and socioemotional development.

High/Scope Perry enrolled 123 high-risk African American children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and is to this day cited by US policymakers as the benchmark for how quality preschool programmes should look and how they can revolutionize children’s lives.

Early childhood education does far more than teach alphabets, numbers, and basic reading. It plants the seeds of character that children carry with them to higher tiers of education and throughout life. The educator creates an environment of belonging, free of judgment, and encourages young minds to think beyond their circumstances.

Children’s sense of imagination is as real as they perceive it to be, and in this setting, they are encouraged to perceive their gray, dreary world through a kaleidoscope of colours that shows a world full of possibilities.

Decades ago, the architect of our independence, Tunku Abdul Rahman, unified a discordant sociopolitical landscape with his boundless compassion and genius for diplomacy, and thus set the cornerstone of today’s vibrant, pluralist Malaysia. At this moment in history, we are tasked with something similar: to stand with people lost in the shadows and offer them hope for the future, both for their sake and humanity’s.

We must deploy early childhood intervention programmes to lift underprivileged children out of the stinking rot of poverty and despair. As a nation that was once trapped in the dissonance of first colonial and then civil strife, it is our duty to pay it forward. It may take the proverbial village to raise a child, but it takes a country to have them soar.

* Jerrica Fatima Ann is an early childhood educator based in Ipoh.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.