Alor Setar woman braves the cold and Covid-19 to feed Melbourne’s homeless
PETALING JAYA: After noticing some of Melbourne’s homeless sitting in the Queen Victoria Market car park one evening in Melbourne, Cecilia Chuah rushed home, whipped up a batch of fried rice and returned to give them a warm meal.
What started that night last May, with just four boxes of fried rice, has now become a weekly effort. Cecelia, with her daughter Shanice, husband Chai and cousin Alex in tow, gives out 100 containers of Malaysian food every Tuesday to the queuing homeless at the car park.
Last week, with Christmas around the corner, Cecilia and her family presented more than 70 new backpacks filled with clothes, toiletries and chocolates in addition to the usual containers of food.
Originally from Alor Setar, Kedah, Cecilia said she had always had an interest in helping those in need.
“My friend and I used to go to the kampungs in Kedah when we were young to give out Milo, oil and rice,” she told FMT from her home in Brunswick West.
“My mother always said, ‘You’re such a busybody, bothering people,’” she said laughing, “but it’s not like it’s difficult or takes up much time. And it doesn’t hurt to help out when you have the chance.”
After moving to Melbourne 18 years ago, when her husband got a job at a relative’s car parts business, Cecilia turned a love of cooking into a business.
She cooks and delivers Malaysian food around the city as a side business while working full time with her husband at the auto shop.
And now, it’s the homeless who are getting a taste of her cooking.
“Some of our friends have tried to pitch in by giving me things like pasta, but the people who come always go for our food,” she said.
Despite Melbourne’s harsh lockdown rules from July through October, which ranked as some of the world’s strictest, Cecilia said she and her family braced the cold, wet conditions every week as usual.
“It was within the radius I was allowed to travel,” she said. “So why not? To be honest, Covid-19 didn’t come to mind at all. It hasn’t stopped me from going to the homeless every week.
“Winter is very hard for them. The sun goes down at five in the afternoon, and you see these people freezing outdoors.”
She said she knew her regulars by name and would notice it when they did not come by for her food. They affectionately call her “Cece”.
She said the last seven months had opened her eyes to the realities of homelessness.
“It’s not difficult to end up homeless. These people all have a story behind them. It changed the perception of my whole family towards them. I used to see them as people to avoid, like they might not be clean or they might be rough.
“But once you talk to them and really listen to what they have to say, you start to understand them better. Ultimately they’re all human.” - FMT
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