Update-A Visit to Rumah Titian Kasih Project

On Friday, 25 December 2009, LTPNTY had organised our first event in our hometown Malaysia. We have had a visit to a shelter home called Rumah Titian Kasih (RTK) in Titiwangsa. It was located just near the famous Istana Budaya. Mak Pah is the supervisor and founder of the organisation. In her early 50s, she is a very passionate woman with a noble heart to help people and loving them unconditionally.  RTK is probably the first shelter home owned by a Muslim owner in Malaysia.  There are about 51 orphanages. This home is not limited to just orphanages but also give shelter to others who need it. There are 20 single mothers who have been abused by their husband, 12 disabled people and 2 warga emas who also live there. The address and contact detail of Rumah Titian Kasih is as following:

Address: 62A-2 Lorong Maran, Jalan Kuantan, Tasik Titwangsa 53200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Blog: rumahtitiankasih.blogspot.com

Contact Person: Mak Pah, +6019-6455769

Located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, this house’s location is very strategic for people to seek help. Kuala Lumpur as we know it is an ongoing city which is like a gold mine for people who are looking for money. But for some people who have been left behind and may have been forgotten by this urban development of Kuala Lumpur, Mak Pah comes in their way giving out a helping hand, taking them back up again and assist them to stand up. For those people, they can just come to this house and Mak Pah will try her best to provide them with what they need like food and a place to stay.

On that 25^th December, we arrived there at about 11.00 in the morning. When we arrived, we were surprised to see that there were a few people from Cyberview Sdn Bhd who were having their charity event there. For some reason, our schedule clashed with their schedule. When they were doing their games with the orphanage, Mak Pah invited us to have a chat with her. She told us more about RTK and what they do to survive. According to Mak Pah, they pay their rent and other utilities by selling cookies and some other traditional food like ‘kueh siput’. Mak Pah will teach all single mothers who live there to make these ‘kuih’ so that they can sell them. So, every penny collected is raised on their own effort. They also get a lot of help from NGO. Some will give donation, some offer help to sell their ‘kuih’ and some offer to advertise their house through blog and other internet page.  Mak Pah’s sincerity to help the unfortunate has opened a lot of eyes to help them as well.  And praise to god, they get continuous help until today.

After one hour of chat and interview session with Mak Pah, we then give out the clothes. There were 3 boxes full of clothes given to RTK. The orphanages were really excited to see those boxes knowing that there would be something new that they could wear. There were also some toys donated. They sorted out clothes for woman, man and children. After picking clothes that they want to wear, they put the remaining clothes back into the box. Those remaining clothes will be washed, hang and put in plastic cover to be sold as second hand clothes. This is another way for them to collect money to pay rent and all. We were touched to see how hard they work to get money and how strong their spirit is to survive despite being in their unfortunate condition.

At 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon, the boys were off to the mosque to perform Jumaat prayer. So, the girls stayed at home and play with the children. It was a very interesting experience to spend time playing with those children. We realised that those children just need someone to love them, spend time with them. They will easily feel happy if someone would give some attention to them. But Mak Pah reminded us to not make any promise to these children. They would feel very devastated if someone were to break that promise, so it’s better for us to not make any promise to them. If we want to do something, do it sincerely.

After about 2.00pm, they boys were back from the mosque. Spending a few more time with the children, we then make our way back home. It is hard to say exactly what we felt and what had we gained during that day because you can only tell it if you are there yourself. But what can I say is that it is so peaceful to see the children smile at you. These children look up at you when they see you, you can tell by seeing in their eyes that they want to be like you when they grow up. Since they don’t have any other brothers and sisters, there are no other people they can look up to other than you, who came to visit them, who are willing to talk to them and spend time with them. It is perhaps easy to please people, easier than expected if we do it sincerely.  I can smile tomorrow morning knowing I have done something good in my life today.

For more photos, do check out our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Love-The-Person-NExT-to-You/163603946364?ref=ts

cheers readers! :)

A Visit to Rumah Titian Kasih

LTPNTY's first event in Malaysia!! Season's greetings to all LTPNTY followers. We are planning on doing a trip to Rumah Titian Kasih (address as given above) near Tasik Titiwangsa during this Christmas. 
Here is a few information about Rumah Titian Kasih:  
There are 85 people living in Rumah Titian Kasih: 
20 people are ibu tunggal (single mother) 
51 people are anak yatim (orphan) 
12 people are OKU (disabled people) 
2 people are warga emas (old people)  


For people who wants to know more about this event, you can contact us Baiti: 0133015170 or Hafiz: 0133052977 ,  
and if you want to know more about Rumah Titian Kasih, you can contact the supervisor of penyelia of RTK-Mak Pah: 0196455769  

Activities during the day: 
10.00am: Arrive at RTK  
getting to know people there 
11.00am: Giving out free clothes to them 
12.00pm: Playing games with the orphans  
having lunch with them 
1.00pm : Jumaat prayer 
2.00pm : Saying goodbye  

If you guys don't have any plan on that day, feel free to come and join us. Just give us a text or call if you want to join us. Spending a day to entertain those who are unfortunate could probably be more meaningful than we have ever imagined.  

We are also currently looking for donations from people - clothes/books/other stuff. Contact us before Friday if you want to donate stuff so we can come and collect them. Or, you can just come on that day itself to give it away to Rumah Titian Kasih. Cheers and Merry Christmas! :)  

Contact info: Baiti: 0133015170 Hafiz: 0133052977 
LTPNTY blog: www.lovethepersonnexttoyou.blogspot.com 
RTK blog: rumahtitiankasih.blogspot.com

3rd and 4th project in Malaysia

Dear supporters,

We are glad to announce that we are currently planning our 3rd and 4th project / maybe we'll just combine both. We are even more excited to announce that these projects will be held in Malaysia!! We don't have any date/time/venue details yet but we will soon. Briefly, our 3rd project will involve donating clothes ( like other projects done before) and 4th project will involve World Big Hug Day which is on 21st January 2010. Any ideas and comment about our becoming projects are most welcomed. Just don't forget to follow us on this blog and Facebook for any update on these projects. One love ya all!

New Look

We loved the old look that we have created but I thought it was too dark. I thought that if LTPNTY wants to talk about love and peace and make people happy, then our blog must have a fresh look and have more colors so people feel more cheerful when reading our blog. And therefore, in the effort of making people happier, we create a new look with more colors in it and added some features like videos and games so readers have some entertainment. Even if you don't want to read our blog, you can have a visit and play around. Videos posted in this blog is mainly about peace and love, and some video clips too from singers that sings mostly about love..

We hope you enjoy this new look. but if you experience any problem, maybe difficulties when opening this blog with slower internet connection, let us know because we are trying to make it easier and more enjoyable for people to read our blog..Love!

History of Peace Sign

We often see a familiar sign which we know represents peace. Something that look like this;

We know for sure that this sign represents peace. But have you ever wonder why this sign is chosen? Now let us share with our good hearted readers of our blog, the history of peace sign that you might want to know.

This sign was first invented in Britain by Gerald Holtom in 1958. At that time, this logo was used for a nuclear disarmament campaign to protest against nuclear war.

The symbol was designated from the naval code of semaphore, the code used is letter N and D that represents Nasal Disarmament.  N is two flags, arms downstretched at a forty-five degree angle, and D is two flags, one arm straight up and one straight down. the ends of the ‘arms’ and ‘legs’ thicken and splay out noticeably as they approach the circumference.

V-sign is also used to symbolize peace. This sign which is widely known either to symbolize peace or just to get ready when taking pictures actually symbolizes victory that is used to represents victory during Second World War. It became widely used as peace symbol ever since the hippies often use this hand gesture followed by the word peace.

There is also another familiar sign that is widely used which is a picture of a dove or a dove carrying olive branch. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, dove represents peace. And in Greek history, olive plant is considered sacred to the ancient goddess of wisdom, Athena.

These three symbols has been widely used to represent peace and perhaps help to unite people under one nation of one love. But no matter what sign is being used, peace and love doesn't have to require a sign in order to be spread. Perhaps love is invisible and human can feel it if we can show it by gestures and smiles, by good deeds and good heart and by helping other human. Such love will give a good positive energy vibration that makes you feel good. So, why don't we unite this good vibration and feel better every day? It is not hard indeed, we just have to love the person next to us :)

So please support us by following our blog and Facebook. Contact us if you have any ideas on doing anything. We'll be glad to help you!

About the Author: ONELove
We are two students in Sydney who work together to help others. We form this independent movement as a first step towards peace. Our mission is to bring unconditional love, that love is not limited to families and friends but to all other creatures. We are also trying to prove to people that it doesn't require much to help people, you just need to have a good intention. So let's join us, take your own first step to help others to heal the world. Contact us through this email: lovethepersonnexttoyou@gmail.com


Article Link: http://www.lovethepersonnexttoyou.blogspot.com/

Update on Second Project

We started collecting stuff from our friends since a week ago and managed to collect a lot of stuff especially woman's clothes. These stuff were mainly donated from those who finished studying and are going back to Malaysia for good. Stuff we collected this time were at least triple the amount of the stuff we had on our first project. Thanks to those who donated stuff; Erin, Barkers People, NAOMI, Fini, Hawa, Fina and Sheera. Your clothes have now gone to the hand of those who need it. And also special thanks to Idraki, Remie, Budin for helping us out. Your help really means a lot to us. Without you guys, we can't manage to do this project. 

So we started our small stall on that day (our stall  look like someone selling bundle used clothes). But the difference is that those clothes are free and yet still look nice, some of them were even brand new with price tag on it. So when we're done hanging clothes and setting up the stall, a few passerby stop to take a look at what we're doing. Some of them asked us the price of the clothes, and when we said they were all free and good to go, people started to go like "Really? How come?" We also get some people saying they felt guilty to take those clothes because they felt as if they were stealing them, since some other people like homeless may need the clothes more than they do. Our first idea was to help homeless people, but since we get many girls clothes and average size of the clothes were small, we don't think it would fit the homeless. In that case, we might as well give it to those who need it, doesn't matter if they were homeless or not. Maybe for students or traveler who need a new clothes and don't have much money to buy one. So, why not shopping a free cloth from our stall. And please don't feel guilty to take the clothes since they are all good to go, and anyone can take it. You just have to be alert of the posters that we are going to post around and follow us on our blog and Facebook, and then bring a huge bag to fit them clothes that you like. We'll be more than happy if you are happy. That is actually our main idea of doing this project. We get to help people with such a low budget and people get to have new stuff for no cost at all.

We got a lot of compliments and smiles on that day. There are some people who had even donated their stuff as well to us. There are also some of them who are interested in joining us for our projects- Thanks for your support! Helping people is perhaps easy, loving people is easier. When random people who you have never met before smile at you and said thank you, you'll feel another feeling that you can't really say how it is. You feel satisfied and happy and joy at the same time. The projects that we are doing is the least we can do to help people, and we hope next time more people can join us in our projects so we can help more people!

Or you don't even have to be one of us. You can do your own project to start people. We recommend you to cook extra lunch and give it to the homeless on your way to work/ uni. And if you want us to write about you in our blog, just email us or send us a message in Facebook with your pictures of helping homeless/ or just your own stories of decent effort to help others. We believe the world could be a better place if we can break the invisible wall between human, especially of those between the poor and the rich and create a nation with one love! :)

For more pictures on what's happening on that day, or you would like to see who gets your clothes, feel free to check out Facebook group called Love The Person NExT To You and go to our album of Second Project. Don't forget to be one of our fans too! Most of all, love the person next to you!

About the Author: ONELove

We are two students in Sydney who work together to help others. We form this independent movement as a first step towards peace. Our mission is to bring unconditional love, that love is not limited to families and friends but to all other creatures. We are also trying to prove to people that it doesn't require much to help people, you just need to have a good intention. So let's join us, take your own first step to help others to heal the world. Contact us through this email: lovethepersonnexttoyou@gmail.com

Article Link: http://www.lovethepersonnexttoyou.blogspot.com/

Angry Homeless Friend

Had enough of studying for that one night, we decided to make some PB and J, tea n apples to give out to the homeless. We took a walk again on King St and met the Franklin's homeless guy (haven't manage to get his name but we will later on). He was sleeping in front of a shop. We approached him and said "Hi!", he replied with "Oh, hello again". He recognized us! Yeah! Anyway, we gave him the tea and sandwiches and continue walking to give another box of sandwich.

We saw one man sleeping near the church. So, we approached him and said "Hi!". When he saw us, he rub his hand on his cloth to clean it and offer a hand shake. Very considerate of him. He was surely hungry but we think he was a little bit drunk. That is my first time seeing a homeless drunk. But we don't blame him for getting drunk, what else can they do just to get by an endless life on the street. Even some of us who's life are good enough need a drink just to chill out. As for them, they are facing an everyday life as a homeless who sometimes didn't get to eat while seeing others eat out in a fancy restaurant, laughing and dancing on the street-the place where they sleep.

Anyhow, regardless of him being drunk, we continue our deed of giving him the sandwich. We thought we might want to talk to him first. After all, we still have some time for our break before continue studying and we certainly want to delay as much time as we can, ha ha. So,we tried to make small talk with him by asking him how he is and so on. We thought we wanted to leave before we told him that there are some sandwiches with PB&J inside the box, with tea and apple too. He was suddenly mad, took the apple and a cup of tea but push away the PB and Js box while saying "It's the white fella food! I'll spit on it!" Poor guy. We assumed that something terrible might have happened to him before; 'the white fella' must have taken everything from him, or torture his life. None of us dared to ask.

So, when you see a cranky homeless guy, don't be mad at him. Instead, try to understand what's in their mind. Maybe some of us didn't understand it because we never experienced such a thing-of being poor, losing everything we use to have and not having something to look forward to just to continue living. Don't wait till you are in that position to then realize and understand how the feel. Perhaps, we don't even have to be in that position, we only have to open a little bit of our heart and see the world a little bit different than the way we are seeing the world now. Living in what we call comfort zone is the best condition you could ever have, but living out of your comfort zone with a journey full of bumpy roads take you to an experience that you will never forget in your life. And that journey you never forget will be the best journey ever that you can tell your children where the story will stay and never be forgotten even after you left the world.

Open your heart as life is always more than what you think it is. And open your heart because it is never hard to so, just like this lines from a song we love;

Standing In The Rain - Jamie Scott and The Town

"I hope you just don’t stop praying when the waters fall

‘Cause standing in the rain ain’t gonna leave you dry
So stand up feel the light
Don’t you want to see all that you’ve got inside
Your love pure one of a kind
But standing in the rain ain’t gonna leave you dry

So take the chains off your world
‘Cause they ain’t gonna do you well
Take the lock from your heart
Open it ’cause it ain’t hard

It ain’t hard."

Most of all, love the person next to you! :)

About the Author: ONELove

We are two students in Sydney who work together to help others. We form this independent movement as a first step towards peace. Our mission is to bring unconditional love, that love is not limited to families and friends but to all other creatures. We are also trying to prove to people that it doesn't require much to help people, you just need to have a good intention. So let's join us, take your own first step to help others to heal the world. Contact us through this email: lovethepersonnexttoyou@gmail.com

Article Link: http://www.lovethepersonnexttoyou.blogspot.com/

Second Project and First Coverage

Yes, we got our first coverage. Thanks to Zurairi Abd Rahman for writing our story on one of his article in PopIN — PopMuda Post 2: Malaysian Students In Sydney For Good. You can follow this PopIN article in Facebook group called PopIN or through this link
http://mypopin.tumblr.com/post/231813456/popmuda-post-2-malaysian-students-in-sydney-for-good

Anyway, glad to announce that we will be having our second project in two weeks time before leaving Sydney for our summer vacation :) That would be on the 20th of November 2009. More details will be given. We hope more people can join us this time and hopefully we'll get to help more people. Peace!

We are now on Facebook!

hey people with good heart!

Just wanted to let you guys know that we are now on Facebook. I just created a group on Facebook and it is called Love The Person NExT to You. So, if you are not really a blog person, you can just follow us on Facebook :)

Anyway, we are collecting things/stuff now so we can do another donation projet and probably focused more on those guys who sleep on the street. So, if anyone wanted to give away/donate their stuff, just feel free to contact us.

The First Project DONE! (Updated)

The First Project is DONE!!!!First of all, we would like to dedicate special thanks to our friends who have been there to support us though it's been raining heavily :-> idraki, idraki's mom, amirin, budin,alia and moon

We manage to give out more than half of the books and clothes that we have. We couldn't finish giving out all clothes since it was raining quite heavily. Even though the weather wasn't that nice, no music played but we still had fun and we are still grateful that our project is done :)

I will write more on what happened today for our first project. As for now, we have to move on to our uni life and prepare for our exam. But I promise to update more on this in a few days time. Hopefully, we will have more supporters after this :) Anyways, these are a few picture that were taken from that day. Look at the happy faces. Lovely!

Update - Sorry for taking some time to update our blog. When we started our booth/stall on that day, we hang all the clothes we had on a little green hut(as seen in the picture)next to the Newtown Neighbourhood Center, some of the passersby were laughing at us. I don't blame them since we look like we were drying our cloth on a public space. But when we started to put free clothes&books sign, few people started to approach us. From their face, I can see that they are still wondering that whether this is a true free sign or just an advertisement that uses big free sign on their posters but put a little word below that say "free second cloth with a first buy". So then we approaced them, saying "Good Day Sir, these are all free and you are free to take anything from here" and they will go like "Oh yeah?" picking up few clothes and books and then go back home with a little smile of satisfaction on their face.

Some other people came and ask us for the reason we are doing this. Sometimes when people ask, we didn't have definite answer to their question. As before we started this project, we are pretty sure that we wanted to help people. But when people are actually asking why we are doing this, it took us sometime to actually give an answer. I guess, we don't really need a reason to help other people, don't we?

Helping other people isn't as hard as we thought. In a very common situation, we frequently see someone donating money as a charity and we had this thought in our head that says "Oh, that's very kind of them. But of course they can do that, they have lots of money and perhaps too much to be kept". At least, I always felt that way. That kind of thought is perhaps wrong. Love The Person NeXT To You will try to prove this wrong, that we don't have to be super rich to help others. As students, we don't have that much money to be donated but we do have a few small change from buying lunch/dinner. So why not giving that few coins that will eventually end up under the couch to the homeless guy who is less fortunate than we are. Or maybe when we have extra food from our lunch, why not putting it into a container and give it to the homeless instead of taking it back home and keeping it until the smell actually annoy you. Sharing is always good, helping is better and guess what, it is not actually hard when you start to do it. Plus, you'll feel good after all.

This is one story that I wanted to share. I remembered one extremely hot day(which reminded us of the weather in our hometown). We came back from Uni and change our cloth. At first we wanted to just rest at home, but since the weather is so nice that day, we decided to go out and have a drink. Random thoughts came and we decided to buy extra drink and give it to the homeless. They might have been as thirsty as we do. So, we buy few cans of coconut drink and took a walk along the street.

We eventually found one homeless guy in front of Franklin. We gave him one drink then we walk further to find another person to give that extra coconut drink. We saw one man sitting on a chair across the street. So we stopped and waited for the green light to cross the street.Before the light has turned green, we saw that man from Franklin running to the man on the chair and gave him that coconut drink. We were shocked for a moment, I mean he's just a homeless but he's willing to share what he has with his friends. Then we started to realize that people are just different in the inside than from the outside. He might have looked dirty and ugly and scary to some people, but deep inside he has the purest heart. He is just a human being like us after all.

The First Project

This blog is still under development and the development has been progressing slowly due to time constraint. Sorry for the delay! :P Both of us are pretty busy at the moment preparing for our final exam.

However, this doesn't stop us from spreading the love to the world. And our first project together will take place this Sunday in Newtown. This project is intended to help homeless people around this area. Not much can be done at the moment, we can only give out free clothes and books.

These stuff are mainly belong to us, or from our friends who have gone back to our hometown in Malaysia. We are still collecting stuff from anyone who wanted to donate. Donation doesn't only limited to clothes and books but can range to almost anything that is still useable like comforters, sleeping bags, shoes, bags, electrical stuff or even toys. We hope by giving out this free clothes, they can have a wonderful Christmas/New Year which is approaching soon. Some of the homeless actually have families and pets. So, other stuff donated like toys etc can be very helpful for them.

Not much can be done to help this people who have been forgotten by society. We have to remember that they are also human being, like all of us is. Human will help other human. All humans are brothers and sister except those who have devour their life to the evils.

So, why not doing the smallest deed out of our busy ongoing life for these homeless. So, please do support our projects. You don't even have to be a member to help us and other people. If you want to give out any donation (especially from locals who live in Newtown), just email us and we can come and collect it from you. Or, just feel free to visit our event this Sunday at Newtown Neighbourhood Centre. God's willing, we will have a nice day on that day, probably some music and free drink. But there is for sure free clothes and books to give away! And yeah, you don't have to be a homeless to take these clothes. Anyone can! :D

About the Author: ONELove

We are two students in Sydney who work together to help others. We form this independent movement as a first step towards peace. Our mission is to bring unconditional love, that love is not limited to families and friends but to all other creatures. We are also trying to prove to people that it doesn't require much to help people, you just need to have a good intention. So let's join us, take your own first step to help others to heal the world. Contact us through this email: lovethepersonnexttoyou@gmail.com

Article Link: http://www.lovethepersonnexttoyou.blogspot.com/