Time really flies by without us noticing it. It has been more than four months since our first visit to Joyful Home during the Dragon Chinese New Year.
Joyful Home has since moved to a new place and on 26 May 2012, Kechara (Ipoh) went to visit the new Joyful Home at No.3 Jalan Ghazali Jawi. The new home is a bungalow lot next to Sekolah Kebangsaan Kinta. We are happy to see that the new premise is more spacious and has a lovely garden at the back of the house, where the caretaker of the home, Irene, can plant vegetables and flowers. They also have a little fish pond at the back of their house. The children are happy with their new home, as they have more space to move around and play.
Anabelle Kong and kids
Joining us for the day’s visit are Pastor Susan, Madam Lim Han Nee, Professor Choi, Eric Choong and Wai Meng from Kuala Lumpur, and Annabelle, Nicki, Janice, Sun Joe Him, Yok Chaw, Brandie Khor, Swee Keong and Mr Chew from the Ipoh Study Group and a new friend Jack from Hong Kong whom we met at Joyful Home.
We knew the home required some basic necessities so we brought along bags of rice, sugar, tea, coffee, instant noodles, dish washing liquid and others. We thank Mr. Mak Kin Weng and Nicki for their kind donation of story books, secondary students’ workbooks and cash to the home.
Jack from Hong Kong having vegetarian lunch with one of the children
The children were happy to see us and some of them could still recognize a few of us. We broke the ice with a game of Pictionary. Volunteers were given an object to draw and children had to guess what is the object being drawn by the volunteer. The child who gave the correct answer was given a prize. The children had a lot of fun and giggles when guessing what was being drawn.
After lunch, we had a sharing session by Annabelle Kong, Eric Choong, Janice So and Kin Hoe about their professions. The purpose of the sharing was to broaden the minds of the children and widen their knowledge, so that they know what options they have for their future careers. Pastor Susan and Jack also gave some words of encouragement to motivate the kids.
Lee Poh Yoke is a regular volunteer at Joyful Home
Irene, the caretaker of Joyful Home, informed us that her children of primary and secondary school age needed a tuition teacher. Madam Han Nee called up Ms Foong (her student from Ave Maria Convent, she is a retired Headmistress), and Ms Foong agreed to give tuition to the secondary and Standard 6 students at her home.
As for the students still in primary school, Ms Ong Lay Bee (Maybank Investment Bank’s remisier), has committed to spare two evenings a week to give them tuition at the home. Eric’s mother also volunteered to give haircuts to the girls whenever they needed it.
We noticed that Joyful Home could do with a face lift. We are going to paint Joyful Home on our next visit!
If you would like to join or contribute to Kechara (Ipoh)’s charity visits and activities, please call Wai Meng at +6012 215 0968. We look forward to seeing you!
Playing Pictionary with the children
