2007 04: Single mum and children get decent meal at Soup Kitchen

The Star online. News. North. Saturday April 28, 2007

By SIRA HABIBU

DIVORCEE Norshafilla Osman, 38, will take a sampan ride with her two children from their home in Kampung Seberang Nonya to enjoy free lunch at Soup Kitchen in Jalan Putra, Alor Star, Kedah.

She will pay 20 sen for each person but the trip is worthwhile as they can have a decent meal for the day.

Norshafilla, who is jobless, will take her two sons Muhammad Tauhiq Firddauz Abu Bakar, 12, and Muhammad Iqllas Firddauz, nine, to the place or the nearby Masjid Nagore whenever they are hungry.

The three are among the poor and the downtrodden who throng Soup Kitchen where free lunches are served from 11.30am to 2.30pm from Sundays to Thursdays.

Norshafilla said when she did not have the money, they would walk for 2km to come and eat there.

Muhammad Tauhiq is not attending school because his mother could not enroll him into a school in Kedah after he ran away from a children’s home in Kepala Batas, Penang.

“I want to be with my mother in Alor Star. I do not understand why I could not go to school in Kedah. I wish I can sit for UPSR this year,” he said

Muhammad Tauhiq said he escaped from the children’s home in November last year on a bicycle, claiming that the senior sisters bullied him.

However, he was stopped by policemen along the North South Highway near the Sungai Petani Utara toll plaza before he was brought back to his mother.

Muhammad Tauhiq claimed that his brothers, aged six, 13 and 15, were victims of child abuse.
Norshafilla said she had to surrender her children to the Welfare Department because she could not afford to take care of them.

“But now I want them back. I do not want them to suffer anymore. They may be hungry when they are with me, but at least they are happy,” she said.