Blind couple return to work with renewed vigour

Muthukumar and Saraswathy met while training at MAB. Saraswathy is among recipients of the food basket programme.

A PAIR of blind masseur and masseuse are excited that they are now able to return to work with the reopening of the sector under the conditional movement control order.

Saraswathy Velaiyya, 38, and S. Muthukumar, 46, have been jobless for close to a year and have overdue utility bills to settle.

They are on welfare aid and because of a lack of income for a year, the couple and some of their peers received help from the Malaysian Association for the Blind (MAB) in the form of food baskets containing rice and cooking oil, among other necessities.

“We worked at a massage centre that hired 13 other blind people. We received 50% of the total fee paid as our commission.

“During the MCO and when we could not work, we had to be thrifty and ate more vegetarian food to save cost, ” said Saraswathy, who was grateful for the food basket aid.

MAB, in turn, is grateful to donors for coming forward after StarMetro published the association’s financial plight last month.

Its chief executive officer George Thomas hopes more donors will come on board to support the association’s food basket programme.

Help had poured in from corporate organisations and even the Finance Ministry contacted the association to get more details.

“The Finance Ministry contacted us and said it would look into ways to assist the blind, ” he said.

The organisation had claimed that although there were government grants and micro credits, the blind faced challenges in applying for financial aid because of their disability and lack of assistance.

Among donations received were food items and home provisions worth RM30,000 from the Selangor and Federal Territory Ceylonese Social Services Association (Perma), Federation of Malaysian Sri Lankan Organisations (Fomso) and Sime Darby Foundation.

George said MAB was still actively looking for donations to assist the blind as many had depleted their savings to almost nothing and were now rebuilding their lives.

“MAB is happy to note that we are confident in helping close to 3,800 blind individuals, with food baskets in the country.

“We are also looking at providing vouchers by collaborating with retailers to give to the blind in Sabah and Sarawak, ” he said.

He added that over 1,500 of them had so far benefitted from the food basket programme with some 3,500 hot meals distributed in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, since January this year.

MAB hopes to raise about RM400,000.

Those interested in donating can do so via MAB’s Maybank account number 514057637836.

Email the transaction slip to [e-mail] with your name, address and contact number for the issuance of a receipt.

For details, call 019-918 2173 (George), 016-212 4749 (Malini) or 016-220 5973 (Dr Jacqueline).