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*This post was originally written/published on 24th September 2010. I’ve reposted here for your reference, since this is the topic of my column in The Star, on 1st June 2011 (click here). If you’re interested to join, just go turn up at the locations I mentioned below. There’s nothing wrong about turning up alone. Don’t let questions or excuses get in the way of you participating. Enough of thinking and talking, now is for doing.
Thanks to (somewhat relentless) invitations from Amin Rahman and later Juliana Tang, on Wednesday night I went to the Pertiwi Soup Kitchen and did live updates on Facebook and Twitter as it was going on. Many would like to know more so I’ll share here. In a nutshell, it’s a group of volunteers who go out to two specific locations in Kuala Lumpur city, four nights a week and give out food.
From my understanding, Pertiwi (Muslim Women’s Action Association) is the coordinator. They get funding and donation from various sources. With that money, they buy packs of food from a caterer whom I’ve been told, that sells at cost price.
Two core groups of volunteer organizers run the preparations and on-ground operations. One covers Monday and Friday nights, and the other Wednesday and Sunday nights. These two groups then go out and recruit volunteers to come and assist their group for the nights they cover.
The volunteers are made of Muslims and non-Muslims, locals and foreigners of random ages. They are either independent individuals or representative of the organisations that are also supporters of this project. To roll out, there must be seven people involved total, fifteen would make it comfortable and to have twenty is a fun night out.
Everyone gathers at 142, Jalan Maarof, Bangsar. At about 8.45pm and then the car-pool convoy, including the small lorry donated by Rotary Club that carries the food, leaves for the first location which is behind Tune Hotel (map) on Jalan Sultan Ismail. Once that’s done, then it’s Kotaraya (map). The whole exercise should be done by 10.30pm, if not earlier. After which, most of them would congregate somewhere for supper.
I’ve only done this once and will abstain from sharing my views in entirety. But should you be interested, there are two imperative points to note. Firstly, at no point was I or the recipients of this aid were approached by the organizers, speaking about Islam or anything to that effect. From my observation, everyone, organizers and otherwise were there to get the work done.
Second point is, should you participate, please be mindful that a segment of the recipients of the food you give out to are either jobless and/or homeless people. Don’t be aloof and take for granted by assuming they think and see things the same way you do. They can be edgy and/or temperamental (let’s be fair, we all can be like that when hungry), though I must say that 98% of them were both courteous and thankful to the volunteers.
http://zainhd.com/2010/09/an-intro-to-soup-kitchen/
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