The children’s education

When Buddies of Ipoh was first set up as a wing under the Perak Family Health Association (then Family Planning Association) back in the late 90’s, its main objective was to provide moral and emotional support to People Living with HIV (PLHIV) and their families. The volunteers were there for the PLHIV to talk to and to encourage them to go on with life despite being diagnosed HIV+. Financial support in any kind was not in the plan.

Then came the case of a poor single mother diagnosed with HIV, with 3 school-going children needing help with their basic schooling necessities. The volunteers then passed the hat around among themselves and friends to collect funds to help out with the children’s schooling needs. The funds were used to buy them uniforms, shoes, bags and also to pay for their school fees.

It was then that the idea of setting up the Children Education Fund came about, so there’d be ready funds to help out any children needing financial assistance with their schooling needs.

In 2004, Buddies broke away from PFHA and was registered as The Buddies Society of Ipoh Perak, standing on our own. That was the year I personally joined as a volunteer. By 2007, when I was the treasurer, the Chairperson then came up with the idea of the Education Sponsorship for Children Program, where we’d be sourcing for individual sponsors for each individual child needing financial assistance for their education. After months of discussion, the Education Sponsorship Programme started off in 2008 with 9 children being sponsored. Right from the beginning, this program was handed over to me as my baby. And it is still my baby now in its 8th year running.

So what happened to the first 9 children under the program? 2 of them are already studying in local universities, 2 more dropped out of school before even completing form 5 (yep, despite getting financial assistance), 1 went to a private college after SPM but dropped out, 2 are now in form 6, 1 in form 3 and the other one in form 4. We won’t let the dropouts deter us from continuing this program. The fact that 2 of them made it to university (and are still there) is reason enough for us to try and provide the same opportunities to other children.

It is 2015 and to date close to 50 children had been covered under this program. Yes, we had a few more dropouts, and a few whose sponsorship had to be revoked for misuse of funds, but what is so satisfying about the program is that more and more of these children are seeing the importance of education. Those who did not do too well academically, started showing their potential once we led them to vocational courses in subjects of interest to them.

I don’t know for sure until when I will have to take charge of this program, and when I can find a suitable volunteer (one who is comfortable with numbers at least) to be trained to take over, but despite some setbacks, I do get great satisfaction when some of the children show some interest and determination in their studies. Although the sponsorship program is only until they complete secondary school (either form five or form 6), those who do well enough to further their studies, would usually still get some sort of assistance from their sponsors especially when they need to register at universities/colleges/polytechnics etc.

I can’t wait for the day they graduate. I know one girl who will complete her diploma soon. And she had already indicated her interest to join Buddies as a volunteer. Hey, seeing the day she graduates with a diploma is satisfying enough for me. Her wanting to be a volunteer? That’s a bonus!

Clinic duty: 2 new cases

When I got to the ID clinic this morning, the nurse told me there were 4 new cases to be referred. Wow! It had been quite some time since there were any more than 2 new cases referred to us in a day. In fact during many of our clinic duties of late, there’d be no new cases referred at all.

I was actually anticipating a busy day at the clinic after the nurse told me there were 4 cases to be referred. I waited and waited… yet no cases were referred. Thinking that the nurse might be busy (2 of the regular ID clinic nurses were on leave) to refer the cases to the support service room, I went over to the doctor’s room. The nurse then told me that she needed to refer 2 cases, the other 2 new cases didn’t want/need support service.

One of them was seeing the doctor at that very moment, so I’d have to wait until the doctor was done. The other one was still waiting for her turn to see the doctor, so might as well let her see me first. So I took the file and the nurse brought the patient to the support service room.

The new case was of a 26 year old female who recently found out about her HIV infection during the mandatory pre-marital testing. She’s supposed to get married this coming November. The rapid test done on her came out reactive, while her partner’s was non-reactive. After thinking things over, her partner decided to call off the wedding.

She was devastated of course, firstly to find out that she HIV+, and secondly when her partner decided to call off the wedding. But her own mother had been emotionally supportive, and that helped her a lot.

Her eyes did seem a bit watery when we started talking, but after a while, she became more and more comfortable. I started joking with her and it was good to see her laughing. I am pretty sure her family support played a major role.

She welcomed the idea about being assigned a buddy. I think I’m going to give her some time, and observe to see if she has what it takes to become a volunteer herself. Unlike most of my female clients, this one is financially independent and doesn’t have any children to support. Getting herself busy by becoming a volunteer might help increase her own confidence.

The other case referred today was that of a young guy with CD4 of only 1. He was warded for lung infections and difficulty in breathing and initially he thought it was due to the haze. But his blood test results showed that he was HIV+. For the time being, nobody in his family knows of his HIV status even though he is staying with his parents. He’s simply not ready to share the info with anyone. While he agreed to be assigned a buddy, his condition was that the buddy shouldn’t visit or call him at home.

So yes, we will respect his request. The assigned buddy will not visit him at home.

Why me?

When I went to visit Salmah last week, initially she seemed okay. Then after she felt comfortable enough to talk to me, she started talking about her problems. It was obvious she was frustrated. She was at that stage where questions like “why me?” kept coming up in her mind. It was nothing new to me. Most, if not all, of my other clients went through that stage.

Sometimes when I talk to them face to face, they calm down. Then I go home, and after a day or two, they’d start sending messages, venting their frustration, and questioning why they, and not someone else, who were infected.

Most of the time, I’d tell them that there are people in worse situations. I’d tell them about some of my other clients with even more complicated problems. It usually helps them feel that they’re not in such a bad situation after all, when I tell them about what my other clients had to go through, but after a while, the whole thing starts playing in their minds again.

So yes, usually for new cases like these, I have to follow up on them more frequently, until they gain some confidence and until they truly believe that life is not over when they are infected with HIV.

Yesterday after my clinic duty in Taiping, and after visiting Dahlia (who went through the same thing last year), I decided to call Salmah. She was beginning to get so frustrated after trying to apply for jobs at quite a number of places but landed with not a single one. She was beginning to ask that “why me” question again. I told her things won’t come easy but she needs to have faith that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. She did seem eager when I suggested that maybe she should start a small business, because she said she knows how to make good bakso and soto. Only problem is, she doesn’t have any money for capital. In fact she has been postponing going back to her hometown to arrange for the transfer of her children’s school, because she doesn’t have enough money to buy the bus tickets.

I told her that I already have sponsors for her children’s education, so she doesn’t have to worry about their schooling expenses, all she needs to do now is to arrange for their transfer. As for the small business, I asked her to come up with an estimate of how much is needed to start off, so I can ask around for some help with the capital needed.

Salmah did sound a lot better by the end of the call, thanking me for my willingness to help. But I’d better call her again in a few days time before she starts feeling down again. Maybe after this I need to tell her of some success stories of my other clients who also started off just like she did, if not worse.

I have arranged to visit her later this month, and will be bringing along another volunteer who Salmah can contact in case she can’t get hold of me. A trainee volunteer has also agreed to join us for the coming visit. Other than clinic duties, home visits are the next best training for the new volunteers.

Visiting a new client with multiple problems

When the nurse from Slim River Hospital called me last week to refer a case (which she felt needed help) to me, it was only 2 days before Raya Haji. While I’d usually call referred cases almost immediately, this time I decided to wait. Raya had always been family time for me, and so family comes first. Just because I’m not married doesn’t mean I don’t have a family. Then the weekend following Raya Haji, I was busy with other events.

So yesterday while I was on clinic duty at HRPB, I decided to call the referred client, Salmah. She sounded receptive enough, and so I asked if it was okay for me to visit her at home. It’s always easier to assess my clients via home visits, because some things cannot be assessed via phone calls. Their living condition… their body language… and things like that. In addition, gaining their trust is never easy if they’ve never met you before, so visiting them at home to meet them personally is always the better option, provided of course you get their permission first. We never visit any clients at home without their permission.

This morning I set off to visit Salmah. The address I got was simply a block __ at Taman _____. No road names whatsoever. After driving for roughly an hour and a half, I finally reached the said Taman. All I saw were terrace and semi-D houses, didn’t see any flats. So I stopped at the first mini-market I saw to ask, and I was told to drive straight ahead. And true enough, it wasn’t hard to find the low cost flats from there on.

The place didn’t look well kept by the developers. I saw many “untuk dilelong” signs at the various windows on various floors. I saw 2 boys running down the stairs when I walked up to the 3rd floor to find Salmah’s home (later I found out that the 2 boys were Salmah’s children).

As I was looking around for the unit number, the door to one home was open,with a lady holding a broom, sweeping. I looked at the unit number, it was the number I was looking for. “Salmah?” I asked the young lady. The moment she said yes, I introduced myself as the person from the NGO who called her yesterday.

Salmah has 4 boys with age ranging from 4 to 10 years old. 3 of them from her first husband, all classified as OKU. The number one boy is classified as a slow learner, number two with ADHD, and number 3 dumb. All 3 have to go to special schools. After their parent’s divorce, they had been staying with their father in another state, while Salmah moved to Perak to work. But their father kept going in and out of jail, and so the kids were passed to their paternal grandfather, who himself felt he didn’t have enough strength and energy to take care of the children.

When their divorce initially took place, it was an out-of-court divorce, and so there was no black and white. Both of them then remarried. No problem for the husband of course, but without formal divorce papers, Salmah ended up marrying an Indonesian guy (who works in Malaysia) and the marriage took place in Thailand. When they ended up getting a child, Salmah’s ex-husband was registered as the child’s father.

I thought there’d be problems with the youngest son’s birth cert, but as it turned out, it was the 3rd son who had problems with his birth cert. You see, Salmah’s second and third sons were born only about a year apart, and after giving birth to her 3rd son, her second son had to be warded for some accidental injury at home, and so Salmah spent most of her time with her 2nd son at the hospital. At that time she was also suffering from depression, and not being able to depend on her ex-husband, the 3rd son did not get registered and ended up without a birth cert until years later when his grandfather wanted to register the boy for school. By the time the grandfather went to the JPN to register the boy, divorce papers had already been filed but had yet to be finalised. The boy’s birth cert was only filled in with the boy’s and mother’s info, all other info in the birth cert was registered as “maklumat tidak diperolehi”.

Now Salmah wants to amend her 3rd son’s birth cert, and she has got all the necessary documents filled up and signed. Only problem now is that she needs to also submit the original copy of the birth cert. She has the photocopy, but the original copy, which was kept at his grandpa’s house, got burned during a minor fire which took place at the house some time ago. There shouldn’t be a problem getting a certified copy from JPN, right? Or at least that was what I thought. Salmah already tried that. But she was told that in this boy’s case, it wasn’t doable because of the incomplete info on the boy’s birth cert and in the system. Salmah was told to go to a lawyer to proceed. And from then on Salmah did not proceed further. She couldn’t afford a lawyer.

I don’t really know the whole story behind it, maybe Salmah misunderstood or maybe there were other options but the JPN officer suggested using the services of a lawyer instead just to make things easier. Since Salmah needs to go back to settle her children’s transfer of school, I suggested to her to sign a statement witnessed by a commissioner of oaths, indicating that the original birth cert was destroyed during a fire. Hopefully that will be enough for her to proceed in making amendments to her 3rd son’s birth cert.

Although Salmah’s present husband, an Indonesian doing odd jobs to make ends meet, doesn’t make much, all 4 children adore him. When the older 3 boys stayed with their father before, they never got any kind of love from him. He was angry most of the time, always scolding them. That was why he simply left them with their grandfather. Now that they have a fatherly figure to look up to, the boys are very happy with their stepfather.

Salmah knows she may need to work to earn extra income for the family, but after being diagnosed with HIV, she lost her confidence to face other people. She knew about her ex-husband’s HIV infection much earlier, but at that time, she was in denial and simply refused to get tested, telling herself that she couldn’t have been infected because she didn’t do anything wrong. It was only later, after she moved to Perak, when she was working at a factory, that she started getting ill and finally got warded and tested +ve for HIV. Salmah had to quit her job after the frequent medical leave she had to take. By then she had married her present husband, who, like her, initially refused to get tested, telling himself he couldn’t have been infected. That was until recently, when he finally got the courage to get tested, and he too was found to be HIV+. Both Salmah and her husband are on ARV medication now.

When I asked what’s stopping her from getting herself a job now, Salmah asked me back, “Boleh ke kak?” Apparently, she is of the impression that everyone will know of her HIV and everyone will look down on her. I gave her examples of my other clients who are currently working and Salmah seemed amused. I then asked if she was interested to start up a small business like selling nasi lemak and the likes. She told me she’d love to but she simply didn’t have any capital to start off her business. Her face lit when I told her that agencies like Baitulmal and JKM’s e-kasih do provide assistance to start off small businesses for the poor.

I had initially planned to spend just about half an hour at Salmah’s place. But when I got there, it was obvious she needed a listening ear and she needed encouragement. I ended up spending more than an hour there. Her spirits did seem somewhat lifted by the time I made a move. But I need to follow up on her from time to time to make sure her spirits do not die down.

The ups and downs of voluntary work

Having been a volunteer with Buddies for more than 10 years, I’m getting used to all sorts of characters from among my clients. Had I not joined Buddies, I wouldn’t have been exposed to the many situations which I never imagined was even possible. I saw so many situations which I would have just passed off as illogical had I only watched them in dramas.

You know what? I no longer watch dramas on TV because I’ve had enough of watching real life dramas which can sometimes be more ridiculous than the ones on TV.

So, don’t I get fed-up and tired of this voluntary work? Well yes, sometimes I do get fed up. However, whenever I sense some burnout symptoms, I make it a point to take a short break. Either go for a holiday somewhere, or in my case, since I love outdoor adventures, I’d arrange to go for some sort of adventure with adventure-loving friends.

What kind of situations would usually make me fed-up? When the clients we’re trying to help are not willing to take the necessary actions to improve their own lives. Worse, when they try to take advantage of the volunteers. Some of them tend to treat us as though we are paid to help them with all sorts of things.

We’ve had a client who came to Ipoh by bus, and then immediately called her assigned buddy, telling the buddy to “come fetch me at the bus station now”. Whoa… we CAN help to fetch them at the bus station if need be and if we’re free, but the least the client could have done was to seek help and make earlier arrangements.

Then there are clients who, once we start giving them financial assistance (for their children’s educational needs), they expect us to help for their other needs as well. We’ve had clients asking us to pay for electricity bills, or even house rentals. We ourselves depend on donations from the public to survive, they can’t expect us to pay for their every single need.

There are those who misuse the educational assistance given. We give them money to pay for tuition they had requested for, then we get complaints from the tuition teacher that they never paid their tuition fees. They ask for money to pay the necessary amount to their respective schools, then when we ask for proof of payment, they tell us they used the money for something else. Then they had the cheek to ask again for money to pay to the school. Seriously, they didn’t think we’d oblige, did they???

There were those who sought financial assistance for their children’s education, and when I asked them to list down the items in detail, included in the list were motorbike and handphone. Duh! And recently, a client handed over an envelope filled with receipts of her children’s back-to-school expenses. She didn’t have the chance to submit her claims earlier, so she saved the receipts from her December 2014 shopping. She probably thought I wouldn’t go through the trouble of checking the receipts in detail. Her receipts of back-to-school expenses included non-school-related items which she didn’t bother to cancel out. OK, I’d give her the benefit of the doubt for those receipts. But she certainly went overboard when she submitted a receipt totally for groceries, and worse, there was one particular receipt for the purchase of a single item… a RM100 Gio-Fiore handbag! The only thing she succeeded in doing was to make me reconsider her as a recipient of our children education fund. If she could afford to pay for a RM100 handbag for herself in December when she needed to spend so much for her children’s back-to-school expenses, maybe she doesn’t really need our help, does she?

There are clients who say they needed to go to the hospital but didn’t have enough money to pay for transport, but when our volunteers offer to take them to the hospital, they come up with all sorts of excuses and tell the volunteers to just give them cash instead. Naaah… they didn’t intend to go to the hospital, they just used that as an excuse to get some cash for themselves. Even if the client was desperate for money to buy necessities, at least tell us the truth. Don’t twist and turn their stories.

By now, some of you may be asking, why are we still doing all these?

Because there are genuine cases out there needing our help! And there are those who actually make full use of the assistance given to them to improve their own lives. Because there are success stories as well and not just the frustrating situations that I mentioned above. We already have some of the children who’ve been getting educational assistance from us who are now in universities or colleges. For those who didn’t do well academically, some of them are doing vocational/skill-training courses to help prepare them for a better future.

We already have families who used to get monthly supply of groceries that I managed to source from another organisation, now these families are already independent. And that’s the whole idea. Our main objective is to help them become independent.

So for those who translate our “help” as “responsibility” instead, and start becoming dependent on us instead of becoming independent, we really have to be firm and put a stop to it. Sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind. Oh, I do have a few clients who are like that. I find that “silent treatment” is the best response I can give them when they start asking for more than they should. I’ve tried advising/nagging (or whatever else you call it) before, but after some time, they’d try again.

If there are clients who are going to hate us because we don’t entertain their requests, so be it. They can go ahead and complain to people saying that we’re not doing our job, but the truth is, it is NOT our job. We’re only here to assist them, not to take over responsibility.

I do hope the newer volunteers who have to deal with such clients aren’t disheartened. Trust me, the satisfaction of doing this voluntary work will come when the people we help one day become successful.