Nurturing a Culture of Volunteering

For one of our volunteers, getting his daughters involved in our monthly distribution is something important to him. Being a family man who loves to help the community in need, he wants to instill the same values for his children. Read on more below!

For Khairul, 32, spending his Saturday volunteering with his two daughters for our monthly distribution in September had been an eye-opening experience, especially seeing first-hand the situation of our beneficiaries.

“It’s really an eye-opening experience for me, especially seeing orphans without their mothers, fathers, or both parents. As their situation is not as lucky as ours, I’m thankful for what my family and I have. At times I’m thinking, ‘oh I got shortage of this, of that’ but I realised that there are more people who are in a more dire situation than what I am going through right now. So it reminded me to be grateful,” Khairul said.

Khairul shared how the condition of our orphaned families and single mothers had impacted him in ways he did not expect it would. Being a family man himself, the distribution had been an experience that he could share with his daughters.

“We met a single mother and the family were living in an L-shaped house with no rooms. There were a total of nine siblings cramped into one room, without a father. So the mother had to work tirelessly just to support her nine children. And her nine children are not 20-year-olds, but just teenagers, some even just 6, 7 years old, which is very - the reason why I brought my children along is, sometimes in words you cannot express, but I want them to see so that they know.”

“And also for the elderly, I could see that they are very old and the ones who are taking care of them are also not in the best of health. So even though it’s not that much that we are giving them - it's just a simple thing, but I hope that it helps them. And I hope a lot more people will come forward to donate, at least to make them feel better.”

It was evident how much the presence of our team, Khairul and especially his two daughters had cheered up our elderly beneficiaries during the distribution. The young girls were mostly enjoying the attention of the elderlies, all of whom were visibly brightened up with their lovable and cute antics.

Khairul brought along his daughters with the intention of introducing the girls to volunteer at a young age and a good opportunity for the girls to learn how other people are not leading privileged lives such as theirs.

“I asked them the question, ‘what if Papa is not here one day?’ My daughter tends to get emotional but she always changes the topic. But bringing them along for one time is not enough, I have to bring them along for a few times. And I believe that starting from a young age is the best way to help them to do more in the future. So at least in the future, they are still people doing all this volunteering work, because I know, not a lot of people would want to do this kind of work. Some are busy working, busy with their careers, so training them from young is the best I can do.

More than just nurturing the love of volunteering in his children, Khairul views volunteering and helping the needy as an important aspect in Islam.

“Because in Islam what we believe is that, when we ease someone of their burden, insyaAllah Allah S.W.T. will ease our burden. So that is very important. And also when we pray for them, saying that ‘may everything will go smoothly’ and praying for their good health, the angels will say to us ‘same goes to you’. So this is a great lesson for us to go through and also a sadaqah that we should consistently implement in our lives.