It’s Ramadhan again

It’s already the 4th day of Ramadhan for this year. Usually nearing the month of Ramadhan and during the month itself I’d be getting donations from friends to be distributed to the poor families I’m dealing with.

This year is no different. Cash donations started coming in since mid June. I was however rather busy during end June/early July, including attending the 7th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention held in KL, so I promised the donors I’d do the necessary after the conference.

Before I went for the conference, I had already given some donations to Jamilah, who underwent an operation for her broken wrist she suffered after getting involved in a motor accident. With her main source of income coming from her food stall (which she mans alone), the broken wrist forced her to close her food stall for already over a month. Which means no source of income except the monthly aid of RM300 she gets monthly from the welfare department. Luckily her children are all under our sponsorship programme, and so at least she doesn’t have to worry about their schooling expenses.

But they still need to eat. So yes, after announcing her predicament on my facebook wall, some kind Samaritans donated some money for this family, which I then happily handed over to her. Jamilah was, needless to say, so happy and touched by the help she’s getting from total strangers who don’t even know how she looks like.

I did invite her to join our Family Day with her children, but when she found out that it will be held on 1st September, she decided not even to tell her children about it. Why? Because her youngest will be sitting for her UPSR this year, and that will be in September. “Budak-budak tu bukan boleh dengar nama Makcik Afizah depa, suka sangat. Kalau sebut aje, mesti depa tanya Makcik Afizah tak datang ke atau tak nak bawak gi jalan mana-mana ke.”

Jamilah knows, if she tells her kids about the Family Day, they’d want to join. However, since it will be held too near to UPSR, she wants her youngest kid to concentrate on his exams first. So she isn’t even going to tell them about my invitation. I respect her decision. And I am happy that she sees the importance of education for her children.

Meanwhile I’ve been contacting my other clients and I’ve been getting positive responses from most of them about the Family Day. I’ve also distributed some of the cash donations received to the needy ones. I still have more donations coming in, hopefully I will be able distribute them to the various families before Raya.