When tragedy hits so close to Jumble Station

Almost a week ago, last Saturday to be exact, Jerry Rambayan, a Sabahan who lives at Angsana Flats where Jumble Station is located, went fishing at a disused development project at USJ1 just next to the Giant/Mydin hypermarts and drowned there. Like many folks in Subang I was wondering which unfortunate guy lost his life doing the one thing he loved most – fishing - and why he had to go underwater to shoot the fish rather than fish from dry land – more fish when you shoot apparently!

Then I learnt from another very regular customer Mellini that Jerry’s wife has now become an instant Single Mum with no job, no income and four young children to care for. So far, she has had many people stepping in to assist her with donations from RM900 collected from Giant’s staff to Datuk Lee Hwa Beng the Adun of Subang who chipped in to buy return tickets for the whole family to fly the body back to Sabah for the funeral.

When she comes back and when all the well wishers are gone, JS plans to have Mrs Jerry partner with Babu a single father of 9 children from Desa Mentari (Sunway) to manage a mini recycling hub so that she will have access to her children and her home while building up a little enterprise of their own.

This mini recycling hub will be complementary to JS in that all items that cannot be salvaged, repaired or used will be collected, sorted out and stored until a recycle agent comes by maybe once a month or twice a month to buy the stuff off their hands. One housewife Mala who wants to earn extra income, will be there to assist the two single parents in the sorting, cleaning and storing of all recycled stuff so that the Mrs Jerry and Babu can be there for their kids in their respective flats in the event of an emergency.

A shop lot just two doors away from JS has been successfully leased to us for RM650 a month which is the absolutely lowest for rentals in that area to date. Like JS itself, we’re embarking on this new direction on nothing more than a wing and a prayer believing that when you prepare for something it will come – starting with a trickle and ending in a flood.

A small portion of the shop will be set aside for JS repairs and service of electrical items where all repairs will be carried by Encik Azahar who happens to double as our volunteer driver for the last couple of weekends. Azahar is a whiz with electronics and has always dreamed of establishing his very own service and repairs shop together with his brother-in-law Feizal who is currently studying electrical engineering. His take home pay is about RM700 and he has two daughters to feed plus finance his brother-in-law's studies so he needs the extra cash!
With the existence of JS mini recycle hub and JS repairs and services, we’re making sure that damaged items are repaired first failing which they end up in the recycling hub for sale to scrap dealers. It also means that JS can now accept any and all things whenever Azaharand I go to the various homes to collect bulky items. A list on what is wanted for the JS recycling hub will be added to this blog soon so watch this space!