For some, feeding the homeless seems like a risky operation since a ban on such activity has been announced last year.
Hence, in order to diminish the mindset of solely opening up a soup kitchen where free food is served to the homeless, a group of creative youngsters came up with an idea to help them.
Ipoh Halal Food (IHF),is just an ordinary Facebook group where people will post up tonnes of halal and vegetarian delicacies for Ipohites to venture their tastebuds.
Starting just as a mere Facebook page to promote variety of food and beverage, now IHF has gathered nearly 52,000 members all around Perak and most of them has joined the IHF program where they will hold a stall gathering cum ‘soup kitchen’ once a month.
Chairman of IHF,Azlan Shukri said considering the fact that it will create uneasiness amongst certain parties, he created an alternative route to feed the homeless and at at the same time empower young local entrepreneurs.
“Our real objective is to unite, promote and help the local Ipohites in their stall businesses, and marketing their homemade recipes to the public.
“And at the same time, we wanted to instil an awareness among young entrepreneurs to allocate what they have in helping the needy, this would also be used as a training for the youth to be exposed in volunteerism activities.
“As you go along, the fun and exciting food preparation with all the other vendors, interacting with the homeless people is an experience that you can’t possibly get inside a lecture hall or from your own business premises,” he said.
‘Sadaqqah’ according to Azlan is his main principle in life and through the systematic approach of IHF that he established since February 2010, he was able to channel the empathy of its members which consists of all ages,profession and background.
The youngest siblings of three who hailed from Temerloh said that he was inspired by his late mother whom always reminded him about the act of giving and loving others.
“No matter what we do in life, we ought to remember that there are people in worse condition than us, and yet we still continue throwing out good food that can still be distributed to the needy.
“Give to others without expectation, be sincere in your ‘niat’, teach youngsters to be kind-hearted and insya-Allah, the rest will flow smoothly no matter how hard it is ,”said the humble IT- specialist.
IHF Promotion and Marketing Manager,Wan Norashikin Noran said, the program received supports from as much as 1,500 volunteers coming from all range of background.
“We started as early as 8 in the morning preparing and cooking food for the homeless along with the other street vendors and it is a really wonderful atmosphere no matter how many time we did it before.
“For the 14th IHF Stalls for Homeless recently, we have prepared ‘Nasi Lemak 3 Benua’ a special traditional recipes of our own concoction.
“Getting a proper centre to serve food to the homeless may not be feasible for smaller welfare organisations, but this is what we specialise in,”she said.
She said, the Program Amal Bakti IHF focuses on the homeless, hospitals patients as well as for the students of the higher learning institute.
According to Norhaida Harun,19, a student, at first some of the students do feel embarassed to take the free food but gradually they have accepted the concept of the programme.
“Moreover, lots of them turned into the unsung volunteers in helping the food preparation process, devoting their time and energy to make it a success,” said the 2nd year Engineering course student.