In the course of helping out Single Parents, we at Jumble Station have discovered there are two kinds of people – the kind that are so apologetic and embarrassed about their dire situation and need for financial assistance while the other kind is so used to getting handouts, they demand for it, take from all and sundry and demand to know why aid is stopped!
The first kind is where Prema our newest Single Mother belongs to. She is a mother of three children, abandoned some months back by her Chinese husband a drug addict and left to fend for herself and her kids.
Prema works as a tea lady cum cleaner at a manufacturing outfit in USJ 4 and earns only RM650 a month but after EPF deductions, her take home pay is only RM600. She earns an extra RM100 cleaning a house but even this is not enough. Prema was referred to JS by Shelter Home and she tells us that she has problems paying off the monthly rental for her low cost flat especially after the MPSJ raised her rental by RM100 just prior to the March 8 elections.
Her rental arrears amounts to RM1,600 and she’s forced to borrow RM800 from a friend to settle part of the arrears. JS donated RM100 and some groceries to her the first time we met her and then gave her a further RM800 to help her with her rental arrears. We’re now trying to see how best we can help her overcome her financial woes so that life will be much easier for this stoic Single Mother. Prema was quite overcome when we insisted she take the RM800 because she couldn’t quite believe that there are folks out there that care enough to want to help. It is folks like this that makes reaching out to real needs such a joy indeed….
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