Tenaganita director Aegile Fernandez has passed away at the age of 72, following a period of illness.
Her family said in an announcement that she passed at 1.26pm today.
“Aegile has been a warm glow of comfort in so many lives and a bright and enduring light in the fight for justice and equality. We ask that if you are comfortable, please light a candle for her today.
“Importantly, she'd want you to keep up her mission for justice, her practice of kindness, her open heart to all who have the least.
“In the words of Aegile, her reminder to us of her mission in life: Ask me not what’s my race or creed, just take me in my hour of need,” the announcement read.
Aegile hailed from the rubber plantations of Sungai Petani, Kedah, and is the younger sister of Tenaganita’s founder Irene Fernandez who died in 2014.
In a 2017 interview with Malaysiakini, she said she started social work since she was 16 years old, and went on to work with prisoners, sex workers, drug addicts, HIV/Aids patients, domestic abuse victims, refugees, human trafficking victims, and abused children.
She joined Tenaganita in 1993 as her sister was setting up a migrant and human trafficking desk.
She vowed that she would not stop her work “until I am in the coffin or in the ground” because there is much work to be done.
As of writing, details of her funeral and wake have yet to be announced.
- Mkini
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