The First Day part 2 [Updated]
Part 2
It’s been a number of days since the first volunteering in Kechara Food Kitchen and blog update.
In part 1, we had cover the first half of the day, which is Food Surplus pick up from Tesco. In this blog, we will be covering the second half of the day, which is Food distribution at Medan Tuanku and Anjung Singgah.
Going back
In part 1, we end with Puchong destination. We reach Puchong destination at around 1715 and we contact the person in charge. The person in charge reach around 1730 and we pass all the food that we had collected from Tesco to them. We then quickly go back to Kechara office and have dinner nearby before the briefing starts, which is at 1830.
Briefing
After dinner, we go back to the Kechara Office for the briefing session. All of us are surprised for the numbers of people in the office.
In part 1, we also have a briefing session for food surplus pick up from Tesco, however the only people there is the 5 of us. Therefore, seeing the numbers of people there put us in surprise for a moment. What more surprise come after this.
We walk into the office and we found there are other Sunway Student who are also studying IT course! What more interesting is I know some of them, what a coincidence.
The briefing then starts few minutes after we arrive. The person who in charge for giving the briefing first show us a video.
After that, she move on with briefing us about a lot of things, which include what we might be our responsibilities, the job scope, information about the venue, reason of homeless being homeless, things that we need to be careful of, etc.
It is a long briefing. By the end of the briefing, all of us are assigned to a venue, which will be either Medan Tuanku or Anjung Singgah. Our group had been assigned to Anjung Singgah.
One thing to note is that we are being told to take photo are rare as possible, or even if we talk picture, we should avoid posting it to social media. The reason is because some of the homeless are there without being known to his/her family. Posting these picture to social media might increase the chances of being found out by their family, which similar incident had happen before.
Anjung Singgah
After the briefing, we then depart from Kechara Food Kitchen office to Anjung Singgah.
Assign of job scope
There are few job scope, which include registration of homeless, authentication, etc. I will only explain those which we are involved.
Before I explain our job scope, I need to explain one of the system there. Kechara has a client database, which include either urban poor or homeless. This client database enable them to keep track with what are the client they have and what help which they are able to give to them beside just food. The homeless will need to register themself as a Kechara Client before able to receive food from them.
After the registration, they will get a temporary card and will be able to receive food from the food counter. They then will go through filter process by the Kechara staff. In this process, they will filter out people who do not need help or do not entitled for the help, which include people who can easily find job but are just lazy, or people who has more than enough but still want to get more as the staff see fit.
At this point, I had mention the word client for a few times. The word client in Kechara Food Kitchen are referring to those people who are either urban poor or homeless. They call them by the name client instead of homeless or poor is to show respect to them and also to see them as someone who are equal to us rather than someone who below us hence need help from us. So, I will be using the word client to refer to the homeless and urban poor in this blog.
Neoh Wei and I are being assigned to the authentication booth. In the booth, we will need to check the Kechara card of the client. If they do not have one, we will need to search their ic in the database and ask if they had lost their or they forget to bring. If they lost their card, we will help them to issue new a new card. If they forget to bring, they will receive a temporary card to receive the food too. However, if their name are no where to be found in the database or had not register before, we will redirect them to the registration of Kechara Client.
Xytro, Ong and Teong had been assign for registration. They responsibilities will be register those who had not been register before to register as an Kechara Client. They will need to interview them a sets of question and help them to fill up a form. After that, they will give them a temporary card to receive food.
Setup
After the assignment of roles, we setup the venue with tables and chair.
The food distribution are officially start at 2100 but there are a plenty of people who had reach before the official start time. After finish setup the venue, we went to our respective booth to perform our roles and responsibilities.
Authentication booth
Neoh and I went to the Authentication booth with another senior Kechara volunteer. In the booth, there is a computer for checking the client name in the client database.
The senior Kechara Volunteer are in charge of looking at their Kechara card or check their ic or name in the client database. She will also in charge with asking them about their card or had they register before. Neoh Wei are in the second position, he will be in charge with searching for the client card if the client had register for more than one month and had yet receive their card. If their card found, he will give them their card. I am in charge with searching in a file for people name who are not found within the client database. Within the file are the registration form of those which had insufficient information and needed to be resummit in the future once insufficient information had been given. I am also in charge will taking photo of the ic and picture of those who want to reissue their card as they had lost their card.
Senior are the female sitting in front of the computer and me sitting at the most left of the image. Neoh sitting at the left of senior which is outside of the photo. This photo are actually found in Kechara Facebook page so we are not the one who took the photo and hence no control over who went inside the photo.
During the period there are a lot of things happen. There are this person who is a foreigner, get very angry after being told that he had yet being registered into the system despite claiming that he had register for more than 3 times. He then walk away without getting any foods.
Besides, there are also one client who when we search his name in the database, he is being rejected. All 3 of us do not know how to tell him about it, so we look for another senior to tell him about the fact that he is being rejected. The senior then come and says: “Minggu lepas saya sudah bagi tahu lu kena reject mah”. The client get offended and defensive after hearing what he say and start swearing some curse word. The client then look at me and say “Ini boss away ka” and walk away.
Besides, there are also people who register in other booth and claim food in this food. Appearantly they have a system where you have to get food at wherever they register at. Not only that, they also have a system where you have to collect your card at wherever you register at. So, there are few people who came here and told register at other place so have to go there and collect their card.
Registration
Xytro, Ong and Teong went to their registration booth. Unfortunately, Ong did not get a registration booth like Xytro and Teong did, so he need to sit on the chair inside the crowd to register the client.
During the registration of the client, some of them had meet people who we had only heard of them in either some movie or it just seems impossible to us.
Xytro are the one at most left of photo and Teong sit beside him. Ong are sitting at the back of the table, bowing down filling up the registration form.
Ong, who had met a client who went into jail for few times and had addicted to drug more than 10 years. The client regret for what happen in the past, but being introduced to drug, he then addicted to it and can’t stop taking drug after that. He had a difficult life after release from jail. He is old and been in prison, no people would want to hire him and hence ending up as a homeless.
Xytro on the other hand met a chinese women client. She end up being homeless because her husband are addicted to alcohol and refuse to work. Her husband also ask for money from her to buy more alcohol. After she cannot stand her husband anymore, she leave the house and end up being homeless.
Ong also met a client who came from Syria. Before he came to Malaysia, he work as a worker in nuclear bomb factory. He leave there after being told to make a bomb that will be used to kill some poeple. From what he told, he will have no opinion with making bomb if it is meant to keep it as an inventory, which according to him, those bomb might not even have a chance to be deploy in war. Those bomb are most likely to be stock up for 2 reason, self defense or as a weapon to scare other country off from attacking them. During the conversation, he also mention that he wish that he went to North Korea instead of Malaysia, because he will have a job in North Korea but not Malaysia (Nuclear worker).
They also met many other client such as ending up homeless because finishing all his retirement fund after he retire or others, but we will not cover all of them but only the few major one above.
Wrapping Up
Finally, the day had come to an end. All of us start wrapping up the venue and we then go back to our home.
Finally
Here a group photo that we took before going home.
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