Emila Yusof (Emilatopia)

A hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the make of car I drove. But the world maybe different, because I was important in the life of a child.

A quotable quote by Forest E. Witcraft on Iskandar’s blog.

As I was browsing through my comments, I clicked through a link to a blog and I was stunned and emotionally touched by the noble deed that it’s owner has done to make a difference in the lives of children. The owner of the blog, Iskandar, has made charity a priority in his life.

Iskandar is currently in a mission to set up libraries for orphanages all over Malaysia and at the same time juggling to bring laughter, fun and magic to hopitalised children.

His noble enthusiasm to set up libraries began during his college days back in 1995. He and his friends started to raise funds and books for a library in Kg Banggol Sembilan, Padang Sanai, Kuala Nerang. After a 10 years hiatus, he continued with his second mission and set up a library in Bait Al Amin, Bota, Perak with the help of Islamic Relief Malaysia. Through his blog and friends, he managed to raise more than RM2K and bought good books for the library.

This year, he began to do it on his own. He managed to raise nearly RM10K and able to set up libraries for two orphanages; Rumah NurZaharah, Kg Janda Baik and Rumah Nurul Hidayah, Bukit Gantang Perak.

Currently, he is fund-raising and collecting books for Asrama Bakti Orphanage, Batu 25, Machang which mainly housed boys, age ranging from 7 to 17 years old. If you want to help Iskandar in his latest Machang Orphanage Project (or next projects), you can do so by donating funds or books. You can e-mail Iskandar at adabi99@yahoo.com should you have any queries. You can also transfer fund directly to his Maybank account: Iskandar Syah Ismail 162188016529 . For books donation, he will be happy to come and collect from you. This time around, he is looking for books suitable for boys and teenage boys. He accept books in good condition. Please do not donate your unwanted old books which are in bad or torn conditions. He encourages donors to give books as gifts.

You can read more about his effort in his blog: Blowing Bubbles

Books Iskandar bought during the last day of KLIBF 2008. "Borong saat terakhir," he said. I actually have met Iskandar at the book fair but didn’t realised that he was this Iskandar.
(Photo by Iskandar)

Iskandar aka Dr. Bubbles is also doing part-time clowning and is focussing on hospital clowning work and interactions with patients etc. He’ll be going to Sabah next week to clown for a young cancer patient and to conduct a workshop on theatre and hospital clowning for theatre students at UMS.

Iskandar attended the Clown Camp at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (to study caring clowning and clowning in healthcare setting) after winning a grant from the university and a foundation in USA in 2003. He furthered his clowning studies at The Celebration Barn Theatre, Maine, USA with a grant from KeKKWA in 2005. He studied Eccentric Performing with Avner Eisenberg & Julie Goell. Currently, Iskandar is applying for a grant to study under Giovanni Fusetti, one the great clown teacher from Italy, at Boulder International Clown School in Sept-Oct 2008.

For your information, Iskandar has served under various NGO namely Mercy Malaysia, SALAM and MAKNA as fundraiser, hospital clown and volunteer. He left the latter after serving for almost 5 years. Iskandar graduated from UK in Chemical Engineering at University of Bradford.

Iskandar dreams that one day he will be able to set up the first professional clown doctors program in Malaysia. For now, he is trying his best to introduce the theatre clowning concept in Malaysia by conducting workshops on the subject with the theatre students at local universities.

And yes, Patch Adam is his idol.