Unlike in the United States, homeless people in Kuala Lumpur, are rarely seen in broad daylight.
I was ignorant. I thought there were only beggars in Kuala Lumpur. They were mostly foreigners. Majorities were women in tattered clothing holding a small child with them. They were often found on the overhead pedestrian crossings or along the corridors of shop houses and banks. I’ve only seen local beggars soliciting for money at night around local eateries. We’ve been told not to engage because syndicates were usually involved. It never crossed my mind at all that some may actually be homeless.
I got involved in Shane’s mission to help the marginalized people, especially the homeless. It has opened my eyes to this sad side of our societies.
Homelessness isn’t just found in the United States. It’s a global issue and growing in cities all over the world. My eyes look for the homeless while I admire the glitz and the bustling cities of beautiful lighted skyscrapers. They are at corners of a buildings, alley ways or under bridges.
We have been coming back to Kuala Lumpur every year so Shane wanted to extend his expertise to work with the homeless people. We looked around for a non-profit organization to volunteer our time as he has many experiences and credentials on this field.
This was how we became involved with Kechara Soup Kitchen. Kechara Soup Kitchen (KSK) is a non-religious community action group that distributes food, basic medical aid and counselling to the homeless and urban poor of Malaysia
They aim to provide a permanent soup kitchen building as a place of safety, “off street”, for the distribution of hot food and medical treatment facilities for the homeless. They also continue to provide street food delivery to those who are unable to come to the center.
In the long term, Kechara Soup Kitchen’s mission is to reduce the flow of homeless living on the streets. They want to provide a nurture center building as a place of training. It will also give assistance to help make the homeless employable and for them to re-enter society.
Kechara Mission Statement
This NGO has volunteers from all walks of life; students and professionals.
We had briefing to learn how to approach homeless individuals in the correct way. We were divided into groups of 5 – 8 volunteers per group with an experienced team leader. Every group was assigned an area to cover in Kuala Lumpur.
I’ve never seen so many people in Malaysia queuing at 11 at night for food parcels! They were not able to go to the Soup Kitchen Building for food, so a group brought food to them. Some were homeless, many were low income earners and happy to save a few Ringgits by receiving the food donation.
I really appreciate the young volunteers.
It was so great to see our young generation of volunteers make Kuala Lumpur a better place to live by taking active roles.
This elderly homeless man from China (see photo) has overstayed his tourist visa to Malaysia. There was no way to seek medical aid in the hospital because he did not have any documents on him. He has been hiding during the day because he feared being arrested by police. He only came out in the late night scouring for food.
Kechara team knew of his whereabout and has been providing food and first aid as much as possible. His wound looked so bad and it was turning gangrene. This first aid team of young student volunteers cleaned his wound and applied a new bandage. This group will go around the city providing help throughout the night until the wee hours of the morning.
Other groups were spread across remote areas of Kuala Lumpur to distribute more food to the homeless there. They also encouraged them to visit the Kechara Soup Kitchen building. It was very heartening to see this NGO wasn’t short of young volunteers. What a blessing to be a part of this group tonight!