Unwanted By Homeland, Refugee Kids Find Acceptance, Strength In Malaysian Cartoons

Aishah Muhammad Yassin remembers her frazzled mother giving her a smartphone and putting on ‘Upin & Ipin’, a popular Malaysian animated series for children, for her to watch. 

“At that time (in 2018), I was a naughty kid,” said Aishah, now 15, laughing. Her mother, busy with housework, was relieved when little Aishah became entranced by the antics of the five-year-old twins Upin and Ipin, who live with their sister and grandmother, and friends from various backgrounds and ethnicities in the fictional village of Kampung Durian Runtuh.

Aishah’s love for ‘Upin & Ipin’ continued into school, where she and her friends would watch the show on television at the refugee school Pelangi Kasih Learning Centre in Selayang Baru, Selangor, during free periods and while waiting for her mother to pick her up. Other than Rohingya like Aishah, the school served Myanmar Muslims and other refugee and stateless children.

“We watched on the TV upstairs (at our school), the whole lot of us,” she said.

Aishah’s friends introduced her to other animated Malaysian shows like ‘Ejen Ali’ and ‘Mechamoto’, and her favourite ‘BoBoiBoy’, which was created by former ‘Upin & Ipin’ animators.

Fast forward to 2026, the Pelangi Kasih Learning Centre, run by the Human Aid Selangor Society (HASS), is now shuttered and the rooms are empty due to a lack of funds. The television sits on the third floor of the building, dusty and broken. Aishah’s friends are scattered, some going to other refugee schools and a few dropping out to work.

Because Malaysia is not party to the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, there is no legal framework on the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in the country. Save for refugee schools run by non-governmental organisations and UNHCR, the children of refugees have no guaranteed access to education.

For decades, Malaysia has been host to refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war and death in their home countries, despite not being a signatory to the convention. As of October 2025, over 64,800 children were registered with UNHCR, out of some 211,360 refugees registered in Malaysia. Most of them are from Myanmar, but Malaysia also hosts refugees from 50 other countries, including Pakistan, Somalia and Palestine.

Bright and vivacious, Aishah is now attending Dignity School in Sentul here, run by the Dignity for Children Foundation. Although no one from Pelangi Kasih Learning Centre is attending her new school, she told Bernama it was relatively easy for her to fit in, partly thanks to the cartoons she watched.

“The shows taught me how to make new friends and (about) friendship,” she said.

ANIMATION AS GLUE

For ‘Upin & Ipin’ creative content director Nur Naquyah Burhanuddin, it was gratifying to hear of the impact ‘Upin & Ipin’ has on children. She told Bernama the show has always tried to centre universal values of multiracial harmony and friendship, along with Malaysian cultural values. The cartoon series is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. 

Nur Naquyah thinks one of the reasons children, in general, love the show is because the stories are relatable across cultures and borders, saying the stories are rooted in shared experiences.

“Village stories or slice-of-life stories are always near to our hearts because they are something that we all go through. We go to school, we have friends and we play hide and seek. So that’s why ‘Upin & Ipin’ stories are near and dear to our hearts,” she said.

Nur Naquyah added that many viewers have told the staff of Les’ Copaque Production, the company that owns and produces ‘Upin & Ipin’, that the series has taught their kids to be better Malaysians.

“The show is created not just for entertainment but teaches values for kids to naturally absorb,” she said. “We got a lot of feedback that the series also taught children to learn Malay. If they (parents) want their children to be better at Malay, they know they (their kids) can do it by watching ‘Upin & Ipin’.”

She said the company put up free content on YouTube because they want to ensure children from all backgrounds and locations could access the series from wherever they are. ‘Upin & Ipin’ is available on premium subscription services like Disney Channel and Netflix, and for free on YouTube.

For Aishah and her refugee friends, 12-year-old Nazrudin Rafik and 11-year-old Zon Pwit Phyu, learning to speak Bahasa Melayu (BM) is important as they are currently staying in Malaysia. Although BM is a required subject at school, along with English, mathematics and science, they credit ‘Upin & Ipin’ and other Malaysian animated shows with helping them to improve their command of BM. They all spoke to Bernama in BM mixed with some English.

Zon Pwit Phyu, whose name means ‘white blooming flower’ in Burmese, shyly told Bernama her favourite show is ‘Upin & Ipin’ because she finds it funny. She relates most to Ipin because “he is naughty”.

Nazrudin said his favourite was the Ramadan episode because it mirrored his struggles with puasa (fasting).

DONATIONS CHALLENGE

Referring to Aishah and her friends, HASS community leader and former principal Rafik Shah said they practice a mix of Myanmar and Malaysian culture. He told Bernama he encouraged his students to watch the local animated shows so they could learn about Malaysian culture, community and social values, along with how to live in a diverse country.

He did not see this as the children losing their heritage or Malaysian culture supplanting their own, noting that “Malay culture has many Islamic values”.

“Some of the animated series are good at educating children. And being kids, they are quick to learn and internalise the lessons.

“We can emphasise that while they are living in Malaysia, they have to act responsibly towards the country, the culture, the laws and Malaysians,” he said.

The encouragement is especially important considering the children’s background could be unstable due to poverty and no guaranteed access to education. Providing education to refugee children is challenging as they cannot afford to pay school fees, so charities running schools for them are forced to rely on donations.

Co-founder of Dignity for Children Foundation Rev Elisha Satvinder admitted to Bernama via WhatsApp that getting funding for refugee schools, which has always been challenging, has been more difficult lately. 

“Refugee education should not be viewed purely through a humanitarian or emotional lens, nor should these needs be vilified or ignored,” she said.

She added there were many reasons for the donation challenge faced by refugee schools, saying NGOs have a responsibility to uphold transparency and financial governance to maintain public trust, as well as engage government stakeholders at a deeper and more constructive level.

Mimi Zarina Azmin, chief executive officer of Muslim Aid Malaysia and former head of education at UNHCR Malaysia, said she believed strong anti-refugee sentiment on social media is playing a role in discouraging people from donating to refugee causes.

“NGOs struggle because some of them overestimated the locals’ appetite to give (donations). How will the locals have appetite if the negative narratives against refugees continue?” she said via WhatsApp,

So for the time being, the refugee school in Selayang Baru remains empty. The TV also remains broken. It is too expensive to repair or replace it.

Many of the children’s parents cannot afford a TV at home. But for the kids, if there is a will, there is a way. 

“After the TV broke (at my former school), we used the phone to watch the cartoons,” Aishah said. Her friends nodded along enthusiastically.