Help Provide Lunch to Deserving Refugee Students

Our second semester of the Future Leaders GED Program began on August 3, and our first cohort of 20 students continues to grow in knowledge, confidence, and leadership.

For many refugee students in Kuala Lumpur, hunger is a barrier to education.

With most refugee families struggling to meet basic needs, older children are often expected to find their own source of food. As a result, many teenagers begin looking for work simply to provide their next meal. This contributes to alarmingly low enrollment rates among older refugee students. According to the latest UNHCR statistics for Malaysia, as many as 86% of refugee children between the ages of 14 and 17 are not enrolled in school.

We want to help change that.

By providing free daily lunches, we remove one more barrier standing between our students and their education. Attendance at the Future Leaders GED Program consistently hovers around 90%—a remarkable achievement among the community we serve.

Since the beginning of the semester, we have provided approximately 1,400 free lunches. These meals do more than keep students focused and energized throughout the school day. They also mean our students don't have to choose between pursuing an education and finding work to put food on the table.

We are incredibly grateful to the donors and partners who make free lunches a hallmark of the Future Leaders GED Program. Because of you, students are showing up, learning, and growing into the leaders they were created to be.

For more highlights from the past quarter, take a look at the attached 2026 Garden City Learning Center Q3 Report. Enjoy!

• Check out the Q3 report! (PDF)