MKCC 2024

Title: A Glimpse into our community…
Date: 28-Jul-2009

Siew Hoon was born with a deformed right leg due to polio. However, she didn’t see that as a limitation but rather pushed herself to work even harder to succeed in life! Her father passed away when she was still young. Her mother single-handedly raised her up, along with her four older siblings. At the age of 16, she dropped out from school. Incredibly, she managed to open a Salon and later bought a motorbike out of her hard-earned money! Siew Hoon loved her work and despite her physical condition, she was able to lessen her family’s burden as well.

In her mid-twenties, she met Tian Huat, a regular customer of hers. He was staying in the same low-cost flats and worked as an electrician. Despite family objection, their friendship blossomed into love and a year later they decided to settle down. They now have two children.

However, the situation at home started to change after the birth of their first child. Salon work was tiring and Siew Hoon was constantly making a loss. With the economic downturn, business wasn’t that encouraging. Tian Huat started to indulge in drinking. Siew Hoon was not too happy with her husband and began to constantly remind Tian Huat not to drink and to look around for job opportunities.

During her third year of marriage, her husband started to beat her. Slowly, it turned into domestic violence and the beating became more frequent. Although her children were not affected physically, they however have seen their father beat up their mother.

What is even more saddening is that their neighbours would just watch the ‘drama’ from their corridor but no one said or did anything. Siew Hoon says that she lived in fear and shame but no one stepped out to help her. Once, her husband came home drunk in the early hours of the morning and ransacked the whole house. He cursed her with vulgar words and when she retaliated, Tian Huat beat her severely. She then took both of her children and hit in her Salon till morning.

How SHELTER lent a hand..

We have removed Siew Hoon and her two children to a safe place to enable her to rebuild her life away from her drunkard husband. Siew Hoon finds it hard to start all over again. She is weary and worries about how she is going to feed and care for her children without her husband. For now SHELTER has become her ‘shoulder’ to cry on. Foer the sake of her children, we are journeying alongside her as we help her to go through this difficult phase of her life.

How can you lend a hand to our community…

This is only one of the many sad and tragic stories in our community. We too can play a part in helping the less fortunate to overcome the challenges in life by being better neighbours..

If you are interested, call SHELTER at 03-79550663 



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