For 71-year-old Wan Kamariah Daud, her “family” comprises the homeless people of Kuala Lumpur, and those abandoned by their families, including HIV patients and those infected with scabies and suffering from open sores.

She is determined to make them feel loved.

For the past 40 years, Wan Kamariah has been sharing the festive celebration with the street people of the capital.

“I prefer to celebrate Hari Raya here in Chow Kit. In the morning, I prepare the meals and I invite them over to my house,” she told FMT. The menu this Raya will feature nasi dagang.

“I’ve been celebrating Hari Raya with the homeless for more than 40 years. If I don’t celebrate with the homeless, I’ll be celebrating at the prison or rehabilitation centre,” she said.

It has been more than 15 years since she began helping the homeless. Now she is an active member of Warung Makan Sahabat, a homeless community centre developed by Amal Malaysia Foundation in 2020.

Wan Kamariah knows exactly how it felt to be homeless as she once lived on the streets too.

Married at 11

Raised in a foster home, Wan Kamariah was married off at 11 to a man chosen by her foster parents in Kelantan.

She was taken to Kuala Lumpur but two months later, her husband was arrested for drug trafficking and sentenced to death. Her life turned into an endless nightmare as she struggled to survive on the streets.

She was once a drug addict and survived on leftovers or scavenged for food.

Now she makes it a point to visit her homeless friends almost every day. Besides providing them with food, she also collects medicine for them, and seeks out those who need medical care, even as applying medication on their sores.

“Sometimes there is pus in the sores where the drug addicts have injected themselves. Sometimes I help to bathe them because I pity them lying in their own waste,” she said. She also takes them to the hospital.

Treating their sores

Many of those she helps suffer from HIV, hepatitis C or tuberculosis.

To make matters worse, some of them refuse to take their medicines because they are not in pain. However, they will appear at her doorstep at 3 or 4 in the morning begging for medicine or treatment.

“When we want to deal with this community, we have to accept all of this. Some of them are having mental problems, some are under immense pressure and stress. Even though we speak to them nicely, they may still throw stones at us.

“But that is not an obstacle for me,” she said.

Warung Makan Sahabat initiative

At Warung Makan Sahabat, Wan Kamariah and her team distribute more than 300 packets of food each day. She is assisted by Harun Abu Bakar, Maryam Salwany and Syafiq Husni Zain.

The centre also provides counselling and Quranic recital classes for the needy.

“I also make kuih and I use the proceeds from the sales to prepare the food and send it to the alleyways for the homeless,” she said.

Wan Kamariah said she believes everyone deserves a second chance.

Her family had accepted her after she was rehabilitated and she has been going back to her hometown in Kelantan.

Despite growing older, Wan Kamariah is determined to continue helping the homeless in Chow Kit.

“As long as I am needed, I will continue helping because this is where I once fell (from grace) and fought my way back up,” she said.