An evening with the homeless

Last Sunday, we the MADPP students are organizing a soup kitchen with the homeless in Ipoh. We have collaborated with Dapur Jalanan Ipoh, the group that had started the idea of the soup kitchen in Ipoh. The servings are held twice a month, which will be on the 1st week and the 3rd week every month. So, we have to follow the schedule in order to join the servings. Fortunately, there are no college activities on the expected date that we choose to join them. We also have to make a reservation with Dapur Jalanan Ipoh because they need to minimize the number of volunteers since they believe that too many cooks spoil the broth.

The motto 'Makanan Hak Untuk Semua' is purposely to show that everyone deserves to get their basic needs without leaving anyone behind

It all started when we are going to decide the activity that we should do for our Social Outreach Service. There's a lot of different ideas that were given but they share the same purpose which is to give something to the community. So, I point out an idea which is to make a soup kitchen. Based on my previous experience joining a soup kitchen in Kuala Lumpur, it does not require a lot of money. It  is totally different in Kuala Lumpur compared to Ipoh. In Kuala Lumpur, the servings were held every week and all the volunteers need to gather at the Dapur Jalanan office to do a 'gotong-royong' cooking together before the servings. This will help to strengthen the bond between the volunteers and will ease the cooperation among them during the servings. I've joined Dapur Jalanan Kuala Lumpur because I was assigned by my counselor to join any Non-Government Organization activities individually. So, it is such a great experience for me during that time.

And that is what I thought would be the same in Ipoh, But it is not, they do not have an office in Ipoh and all the things that we wanted to contribute need to be done before the servings. So, we decided to serve two kinds of sandwich which are sardines sandwiches and egg sandwiches. We also planned to serve the homeless with bolognese spaghetti, a cup of cendol and bottles of mineral water. Other than that, we tried for not to give them just foods and beverages. We planned to give something that is beneficial for them to use such as, toiletries, bandage and used clothes. There is a lot of things that  we have to do before the serving day. Starting from the paperwork, the gun chart, and the Person in charge in their respective duties. The one that needs to deal with Dapur Jalanan Ipoh, the one that needs to buy all of the things, the one that needs to organize the transportation, and the one that needs to make the promotion for our Social Outreach Service.

One of the extra service that we give to them

Our major constraint is money, we need to collect sufficient money for the event which will be in the next two weeks. We did not need too much money for the servings because we will give them based on our collections. But based on our calculation of the paperwork, it is estimated that we need approximately RM 2000. This is included our transportation, the promotion banner and the t-shirt for the event. So, it has been a tough work for those who were assigned to make the promotion as they have a limited time to find the money. To ease the promotion to be widespread, we blast our promotion for donation via WhatsApp. To our surprising, we managed to collect approximately RM 3000. Yes, the money did exceed our expectation and to make use the extra money, we buy two sets of  haircutter machine and provide a free hair cutting service to the homeless. We also bought lots of fruits by using the extra money. This will give the homeless adequate vitamin and nutrients. As a result, they will not easily get infected by any diseases.

As we arrived there, we still cannot find any of the homeless people. So, before we set up the serving place, we decided to perform Asar prayer at the mosque next to the serving place. After that, we quickly rush to set up the place as we can see they started to gather and line up to get ready before getting the food. I was assigned to handle the spaghetti section and I have to ensure that they  receive a container of spaghetti with the sauce, fork and spoon, and orange juice. After I have completed my duty, I tried to make a conversation with one of them, I talked with Pakcik Rahman which he is more comfortable to be called as Pak Man. He said that he is not literally homeless and he still lives with his wife. Even though he has a house to live in, he still attends the Dapur Jalanan service to see the young people contribute something to the community. This is because Pak Man and his wife were left by their children without any help. They continue to support their life by using the money from Pak Man's pension. Pak Man felt touched when he sees the Dapur Jalanan crew members as it will reminisce him about his children. When I heard Pak Man's story it makes me feel sad about our future generation. There is a lot of things that can be learned from an evening with the homeless.

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