Week 5: The End

Five weeks of field work has ended. On this last day, our conversation with our sahabat went deeper. Family issues. She is disappointed with her daughters. As she talked, her eyes went watery. Seeing her, my heartache. I promise to myself that I will never ever let my mom to go through this.

When I was younger, I read something that talk about the relationship between parents and children. If not mistaken, it categorized the relationship into four types and I just remembered two. One says that children are parents’ debtors. Another says that children are here to repay the debts the owe to their parents. Not long ago, I saw something similar that says everyone around us is our debtors. So, if these were to be applied to my sahabat’s case, it seems that the children are her debtors. Whenever I see someone having a good life or a bad one, it makes me thinking what they have done in their past life or current one.

For her.

As I was discussing with my group mate, Joy about what our sahabat’s family issues, a Chinese saying came to my mind, “慈母多败儿”. The direct translate of it will be: a kind mother has a failed son. Our sahabat did scold her daughters but to what extend? Obviously she is not stern enough with her daughters. To some people, who do not know how to be grateful and appreciate what they have, some heavy punishment should be given to them. It may look mean to that person but that’s the way to make a person grow.

Since this is the last week of this project, I printed a photo that we took with our sahabat during our first meet up, framed it and gave to her as a memory. Everything comes to an end but memory lasts.

Hope that this will not be our last photo with her.

 

After these five weeks, I realised how lucky I am. I have a lot of things to be grateful for and I shall just list out five.

 I am grateful for:
- being born to a financially stable family
- having a great parents who fulfilled all my needs.
- the guidance Ms Kelly and Mr Sam provided to us throughout these whole module.
- my allergies being taken into account.
- a bunch of group mates who are super cooperative and helpful.

Week 4: The Discovery

4th September 2014, Tuesday. The day we finally got to see what's the actual situation of our sahabat, Pn. Salamiah. A few days before the visit, we decided to get her a fruit basket.

We left Taylor's around 12.30pm and reached our destination roughly 30 minutes later. The place Pn. Salamiah lives is a government-built low cost flat located on a hill which consists of four blocks, each at a height of 16 levels. The nearby area is more concentrated with other flats and houses. Pn. Salamiah carries out her food stall business at the ground floor’s corridor outside a local kindergarten where the local community’s children attend. At the ground floor of each block, there are shop lots such as restaurants, mini markets, barber shop, tailor shop, clothes shop, cyber café and beauty treatment center which are all run by the local community. After surveying around, our conclusion is that her business can barely survive. The pictures below are part of the housing area.

There are 4 flats facing each other, each with roughly 16 floors.

Mini market? It looks more like a mini wholesaler to me.

I wanted to suggest Pn Salamiah to sell snacks since her stall is next to a kindergarten but looking at this, no.

A whole row of restaurants. There are roughly 5 or 6 shop lots selling food.

After looking around, again, we are clueless. To change her situation, she must change her business location. To change, transportation is needed and she has none. She has a RM6000 loan with AIM and she said she spent them on buying containers and other business related stuff. Come to think of it, having a marketing plan may not really help her. What she needs is being taught the concept of money and how to use money wisely. I'm not saying that I'm very good in it but looking at her way of spending money, that's not right. She mentioned that she bought a set of facial product costs hundred over for her daughter. I smelled something fishy there. It could be either she has no idea of money managing or she did not revealed her actual income.

Another thought is that she mentioned she has a teacher, whom I believed is a representative from AIM. According to Pn Salamiah, what the teacher does is collecting money, the payment for the loan and gives the same speech every time they meet. She did asked for help from her teacher, but no help is given. I have no idea what's the actual situation. If what Pn. Salamiah said is true, something needs to be done. To me, it is pointless to lend funds to people without helping them to build up the business. The fund will end up wrongly spent.

Next week will be the last week of this project. And I doubt the positive impact I've made to her life. And again, I strongly believe that no matter how well a marketing plan is, it will still be pointless if the person's concept of money isn't right and doesn't know how to manage the money well.

If you ask me now, is this karma? It could be, but 50%. 

It is really important to spend according to one's ability.

Week 3: Better Understanding

The third field work. In Taylor's. Today's activity was mainly helping those sahabat who hasn't registered yet to register, filling the budget form as well as forming marketing strategies for our sahabat.

Something off topic, to be frank, making us, Banking & Finance and Finance & Economics students to come out with a marketing plan is challenging. So far, none of us took up marketing as a module before. May be this will be more appropriate for marketing students. Instead of sending those students who take International Business& Marketing, Marketing and International Business to teach and help refugees and high school students, I think AKPK programme is more suitable for them in terms of planning marketing strategies. Anyway, since we are already in this programme, challenge is accepted.

This morning, I was kind of dreaded to go. I really have no idea what I can help my sahabat within five weeks of time. After everyone arrived, we were seated with our sahabat. She asked me a question: "Why are we being gathered at there for weeks?" For a moment, it hit me hard that I need to do something for her or else those days she spent joining this programme will be wasted. She could have earned some money if she were to stay at home.

After having a deeper conversation with her, my group mates and I are quite clueless of what we can do. She has almost tried everything that she can. She said that sales is dropping as competition gets stiffer nowadays. Everything that we suggested to her, she had tried them. This makes us even more clueless.

One major problem that I think she faced is transportation problem. She doesn't own a motorcycle nor a car. Even her daughters who stayed with her doesn't own one. Another problem that I think that causes her business not doing that well could be lack of perseverance. She jumped from one business to another once she thinks that the business doesn't do well anymore. There may be many other causes to why is her business not performing well which are yet to discover.

I hope that by visiting her place next week will give me a better understanding to her problem and I really want to come out with a solution for her. She's like a grandmother to me. Getting to know her more made me realized how lucky I am. From her, I can see a lot of things. I did compare her with my mother and realized how great my mom is. This may be biased as I just knew my sahabat for 2 days. But in terms of the way she and my mom handle problems, my mom is definitely better than her. For example, she has 4 daughters from 23 to 30 years old who are staying with her. Only of the daughter managed to get a job recently. The others are not working nor helping her much. If I'm at this age range, my mom will definitely kick me out of the house. Staying at home and not helping at all? That's just impossible in my family. Of course, comparing both of them like that is unfair.

Another thing I was thinking is karma. What my sahabat is facing now could be karma from her past deeds. I may be thinking way too far. But, seeing her situation makes me want to do more good deeds in my current life. And helping her is definitely one of the good deeds I can do.

Week 2: The Meet Up

First outing: Menara AIM, KL. 

We were told to be at bus stop by 8 a.m., not many were there by eight but luckily no one was really late. We were told as well to dress formal, but somehow there were still some people who turned up in t-shirt and jeans. I overheard this guy's explanation on why he wasn't in formal wear. He said that he didn't know about it and he doesn't have formal wear. HOPELESS. Infinite % hopeless. For a moment, I felt like strangling him. Such irresponsible. Note to self, never find a boyfriend like him.

2 buses took roughly 90 of us to our destination. When was the last time I ever traveled by bus? Months ago? Last year? I can barely recall. On the way, we passed by a primary school. Kids were having their PE session. A wave of nostalgia hit me. I missed both my elementary and high school life. School trips by bus, the jokes and laughter I shared with my friends, the fun I had during PE sessions and of course, how I use to hate PE sessions sometimes. Time flies and now I'm undertaking my tertiary education.

My group mates and I!

We reached our destination earlier and waited outside for awhile. Glad to be early. We took loads of photos, making jokes around and finally we can enter the building. We were greeted by the staffs and breakfast! After that, we headed to the hall. Ms Kelly met our sahabats before us and told us that some of them may not be ready and willing to open up. I GOT SCARED. Soon, our sahabats entered the hall and seated. From my seat, I only managed to see one sahabat clearly. She looked fierce and hard to approach. I was hoping that she isn't my sahabat. Then the grouping started.

Us, infront of Menara AIM, KL.

God must have heard my prayers and fooled me. My sahabat is her. For a moment, I was like," Oh my god, it's her! " She is Pn. Salamiah, in her late fifties, selling noodles and some fried food nearby her house. She is totally the opposite of what I thought. God must be laughing at me and say, "Surprise!" She is so friendly and she treated my group mates and I as her children. She lost her husband and has 11 children, the oldest is 40 years old and the youngest is 23 years old. 4 of her daughters, age range from 23 - 30 are staying with her as well as her 10 year old grandson. Her daughters aren't working nor helping her with her business.

With our sahabat, Pn. Salamiah.

Since this is our first time meeting each other, I'm afraid to overwhelm her with all my questions as those questions I'm curious with can be very private to her. I wanted to know why are her daughters not working at all? Assuming her daughters are both mentally and physically fit people, why are they not working nor helping their old mother? This sahabat of ours are suffering from diabetes and some other illness and she has to feed her grandson as well. Again, these are my assumptions and thoughts at that moment. There may be some reasons behind this and hopefully my doubt can be cleared when I meet up with her in future.

Pn. Salamiah couldn't read, so all the forms filling were done by my group mates and I. I believe this is the first time AIM, AKPK and Taylor's having such a project. Some documents were wrongly printed, we were confused with what to fill in and what did the questions ask. Some forms had been briefed earlier and we didn't face much problem on that. But not those documents that we have never seen before. I would say the forms filling session was quite chaotic. Somehow some parts in the some documents given are irrelevant to my sahabat.

To ensure a smoother and less hassle form filling session, I would suggest that a form filling briefing session should be conducted earlier. I believe no one fancy double work and I do hope to give the exact information needed by the forms, so that my sahabat will be helped.

After getting to know Pn Salamiah, I feel grateful for what I have. A few years later, I have to be financially independent and then being able to give sufficient financial support to my parents. I don't want my parents to be Pn. Salamiah's situation.

Group Photo!

Representatives from AKPK, AIM and Taylor's University with 25 sahabat and the leaders of 25 groups.

Week 1: Eyes opening

Community service is something I've always wanted to do. When I was exposed to the four projects that are going to be carried out, to be frank, I'm more interested in DIB. Sign language attracts me most. Anyway, since I'm being placed under AKPK, let's just go with the flow. Second week was a workshop with EPIC Homes, it was interesting, fun and informative. Third week was a briefing from AKPK as well as an insight of what are we going to do. My group mates and I are supposed to help a small entrepreneur to get his/ her forms ready for registration as well as come out a marketing plan for our "sahabat". I felt the burden. But hey! I will definitely learn a lot from this!

Entering week 4 of this module, which is also the first week of this project. This is first day of getting to know exactly what our responsibilities are in this project. I get to have a look at how does a registration form looks like, at the same time I was thinking that may be some day in future, I will be filling this form for myself.

 Looking at the speaker, representative from AKPK, Ms Liz, I supposed, gave me an idea that I can do what she is doing now in future. Right after she explained about forms filling, she shared her experienced working in this field, the cases she dealt with before. Cases like a 25 year old having a huge amount of debt. After listening to this case, I feel grateful for having a great mother who started to instill the concept of money and saving to me when I was seven. Soon, a new concept was injected to me, credit card is just for emergency. I was told that using credit card is using the money that you don't own yet and it is bad to do so. As a kid, mother's words are my bible. Now, I do agree that both of these concepts are important in financial management. Later, I realized that we need to be clear with our needs and wants. If this 25 year old has all these concepts in mind, he will not be in where he is now. Again, I am grateful because I know a few years later, when I am 25, I will not have a huge debt following me everywhere. Speaking about the case of  photocopied I/C being misused, it freaked me out. Never knew it will bring such a huge impact to the I/C holder. A note to self, be more cautious in future.

Punctuality has always been an issue especially to Malaysians and it's shameful. Some of my course mates are following the so-called Malaysian time. Being late. Why is this happening? Bad in time management? People don't take things seriously? Are all Malaysians bad in punctuality? Somehow, I'm the odd ones and proud to be.

This session ended earlier than estimated. Next week, we shall meet our "sahabat" and a launching ceremony will be held. Looking forward!