Teaching women to save their own lives

Free workshop: Teaching women to save their own lives
Date: Saturday 28 August 2010
Time: 9am - 11am
Venue: Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) auditorium in Pandan IndahLocation map at bottom:

A woman living in the city is exposed to all sorts of threats daily. Snatch thieves, robbers, rapists and even Peeping Toms. There is no denying that women are seen as “easy targets.”

Now two men — Pandan MP Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and safety activist Captain K. Balasupramaniam — want to help teach women how to survive in the city.

Ong is organising a free workshop on city survival skills this Saturday in his constituency, together with non-governmental organisations Yayasan Bakti Nusa Malaysia and Persatuan Belia Rakan Nusa.

Balasupramaniam said that the all-women workshop this Saturday would centre on things like voyeurism, snatch theft, house burglaries, rape, sexual harassment and even how to withdraw money safely from an ATM machine.

He pointed out that the workshop was restricted to women as some men may misuse the training to hurt women instead.

“We will teach them how to detect two-way mirrors in changing rooms and what to do if a man drags you into a room (to rape you),” said Balasupramaniam, who has trained over 100,000 women in the past 11 years.

Balasupramaniam added that he would even share basic safety tips like describing a taxi driver and noting down the number plate of the taxi aloud to a friend on the phone when travelling alone.

“If you do all that, do you think the taxi driver will dare abduct you?” asked Balasupramaniam.

The city survival skills programme will be held at the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) auditorium in Pandan Indah this Saturday from 9am till 1pm. Admission is open to females aged 13 years and above.

Source: Malaysian Insider

Location map: Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (Majlis Perbandaran Ampang Jaya)

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Let us be more appreciative of our police

There are good cops and bad cops. There are some bad cops who take bribes and give the Malaysian Police (Polis Diraja Malaysia) a bad name. I am very sure there are plenty of good cops in our Malaysian Police (Polis Diraja Malaysia). Let us not allow a few black sheep's prevent us on appreciating the good cops, what they are doing to make our beloved country secure and safe for us, and what they have to go through in doing their jobs and the risks they expose themselves to. Think of, for example, the traffic police standing in the middle of a junction directing traffic to make traffic flow more tolerable during peak traffic hours to motorists. They stand expose to the moving vehicles and the possibility of being hit by a careless driver. Think of the air pollution they have to put up with. I wish that one day, I can stop briefly near them, wind down the window and say "terima kasih" (thank you). Unfortunately, I am retired and all my cars have been given to the children. I do drive on extremely rare occasions, but even if I should get such opportunity and do what I said I would like to do, the impatient motorists behind me are not going to be very happy, and that is saying it mildly.

Police put their lives at risk everyday. There are many good cops who loyally hold on to their principles of serving the public. Their acts are not publicised and frequently not appreciated by people because in the first place, they do not get onto the front page of the newspapers. Those pages are reserved for the ruling politicians in our country. People say bad things about the police force just because of a few black sheep. I think that is not fair. They don't know that every year, there are many who get killed or injured in the line of duty.

See what some of them have to endure in the line of duty:

Constable Peter Wong from the Brickfields police station on an operation against drug addicts was bitten by an addict, and as you know, drug addicts are highly likely to be also HIV/AIDS sufferer. The HIV virus can be transmitted via saliva. How would you like to be bitten by a such a person?

Then there is another cop who was in an anti-narcotics squad on a dadah raid in the Chow Kit area. Suddenly, he let out a scream. Asked what happened, he said "Aku kena cucuk," (I got jabbed) and then quickly rushed off to a nearby clinic. Unfortunately, I don't think the clinic can do much for him because the doctor there will not be able to help him get the HIV virus out of his system if he was unfortunate to be infected. And it will be some time before he can find out if he had been spared or infected.

Come on. Let us not allow a few black sheep prevent us from appreciating our police force who put their lives and welfare at risk in their line of duty.