Gifts, good food and generosity for Orang Asli families in Johor during this Xmas

The Star

Every year, Ramah and her four children from the Simpang Arang village in Johor would go looking for clams and other seafood at a nearby mangrove forest to make their favourite dishes for Christmas.  Their celebrations were made extra special this year with groceries provided by the Johor Baru Calvary Community Church.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00Forty-eight Orang Asli families from the Simpang Arang village in Johor have received groceries

00:08and other goodies from a church recently.

00:11The contributions came handy, as they would be able to use them to cook their favorite

00:15food, including seafood dishes, for Christmas.

00:19Thirty-seven-year-old Rama said every Christmas her family and children would look for clams

00:24and other seafood in a nearby mangrove forest and look forward to good food, gifts and new

00:29clothing during their celebration next week.

00:36She said her children are hoping for a Christmas tree this year.

00:40Twenty-four-year-old Helene said her family expected their Christmas to be filled with

00:44food and carols.

00:46Under its Sekilokasi program, the Johor Baru Kalvari Community Church said its volunteers

00:52and members distributed groceries to some 1,000 families in Johor and Malacca this time.

00:58Sekilokasi started nine years ago and we've been doing it for the past nine years.

01:03I always think how during Christmas, all of us have homes to go to, nice food that we

01:09can eat and family that we can, you know, spend time with.

01:13But then I realized that there are many people that are not so well-to-do and they may not

01:17have the same luxury as us.

01:20And so I thought, why don't us as the church put in our resources to help people who are

01:27less fortunate than us, and then we can use our means to even just come up with a kilo

01:34of kindness during the Christmas season.

01:37One of our friends, friend actually, we reached out to him, he's actually a diabetic patient.

01:42So due to that, he had to go through amputation of his leg.

01:46Once we heard, you know, what was happening with him, we immediately took him back and

01:49went over to his house.

01:50We had a good time there and actually we even managed to get a chance to pray for him as well.

01:55I think it was very good to see people being blessed by Sekilokakse.

02:00So I think that was one memory that will always hold on to me.

02:03Each bag that the church distributed contained about 100 ringgit worth of groceries, including

02:08cooking oil, instant noodles, biscuits, canned sardines and other dry food.

02:14Besides providing aid to the Orang Asli, the church said it will give out goodies to the

02:18Rohingya community to lessen their financial burden during the festive season.

02:25For more information, visit www.fema.org

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