eHomemakers Malaysia

"Good morning, Madame!  Aziza here now."  She smiled and her plump cheeks buldged upwards, pushing her old-fashioned, black-rimmed glasses up to her eye­brows.  All covered in a black caftan and long veil, Aziza stood at the door clutching her usual plastic shopping bag containing her work clothes.   She followed me, a sign of respect to her employer, as we climbed the twenty steps to my apart­ment.  When I reached the top, Aziza was still only half-way up.  Panting heavily, she hauled her heavy body up each step with great difficulty.  Her right hand pressed her right thigh as her right leg moved up one step to the next; her left leg moved the same way.  Every time she exerted force with her legs, her fleshy feet squeezed into her little shoes, seeming to want to burst out of them. Sweat seeped through her veil near her temples when she reached the top of the stairs.  Her thick lenses were so foggy that I could not see her eyes....

Photo by Tzer Haw I was visiting a poor village near Manila in the Philippines with Mrs Amelia and Gina.  The village was inhabited by several hundred families, all cramped into small, dilapidated, wooden houses.  The local men were mostly labourers and petty traders while the women took care of household chores or helped their hus­bands in odd jobs.             Mrs Amelia was the head of an organization called Giving Hope, which had com­munity projects in the area, and Gina was one of the social workers.  Giving Hope was conducting health and sanitary education for the people.  After a few years, however, they realized that improving the health and sanitary conditions meant helping people out of poverty first.  To do this, Giving Hope Board of Management started income-generation projects.  They decided to help the poorest of the poor women first. The d...