Touching Lives

Date: March 9^th, 2008
Place: A kampung in Padawan
Project: Touch a Life II
Activity: Donation to a poor family

The New Century Lions Club of Kuching Emerald has carried out another project to help the people in need today. We call it the "Touch a Life" project as many lives on earth need the touch of our helping hands.

We managed to donate to a family in dire straits near Padawan, about 40 km away from Kuching. The Segeat family consists of an old couple, two sons and a daughter. Although the living condition of this family is better than those in Kampung Empesak, the family has no income, except the compensation from the Social Security Organisation (SOCSO) and donation from the church.

Both the sons have kidney failure and they are on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) treatment. Therefore, it is almost impossible for them to work to support the family due to the long hours of treatment every day; in which they have to replace the cleansing fluid four times a day, and each replacement session takes more than an hour.

The daughter is married but she was diagnosed with congenital dyserythropoietic anemia (CDA), a type of sickness due to insufficient hemoglobin in the blood. Therefore, the husband has to look after her. In addition, he has to look after his sick mother too. He can't go to work due to this mandatory duty, so the family has no income as well.

Both of the sick brothers rely on the fluid for the CAPD treatment supplied free-of-charge by the hospital. However, there is no conducive environment, i.e., disinfected space for the treatment. They were admitted to the hospital several times due to infection, probably due to the septic environment of the kitchen where they carry out the treatment at the moment.

Albert from the Association of All Churches, Kuching has told the family that they need a clean space for the brothers to carry out the treatment, so they indentified a space and moved out the stuff from there.

Albert also appealed to us for letting them using part of our cash donation to renovate the space for the brothers' CAPD treatment. We couldn't agree more to his suggestion, as this is all for a good cause.

Apart from the cash donation, we also donated a water filter, some floor mates and a multi-purpose rack to help them improve their daily life.

Before we left, the family insisted we have some tea. The warm tea that ran down our body also touched out hearts.

We have touched the life of a family living under poverty today. Have you? If you feel duty-bound to touch a life with us, please contact us at the below address.

New Century Lions Club of Kuching Emerald
P.O. Box P70
93457 Kuching
Sarawak
Malaysia
Email: jenny_chu@yahoo.com.hk