The running tribe

Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to register and run the Boston Marathon, was famously quoted as having said "If one is losing hope in humanity, go watch a marathon."

Some crazies like yours truly take this to heart by running marathons to restore our hopes, and every single time, this remedy doesn't disappoint.

After losing a friend and my father a mere two weeks apart recently, the amount of grief seemed insurmountable.

These events also put other personal tragedies into perspective, and to be honest, I really didn't want to pay attention to other recent events (like the Umno general assembly which would have our founding fathers turning in their graves) happening in our country.

I guess, grief does that – one ultimately realises that while one can be so affected by the happenings in one's society, the closed-off, personal space is what needs to be nurtured and taken care of the most.

Heartbreak and grief forces any person to reflect on one's life, and as a privileged middle-class 3M, these recent events really forced me to ponder on the humanity and empathy that I myself live with. As they say, the best effect of change is by changing oneself.

So I decided to run in the 19th Angkor Wat International Half-Marathon. This time, I chose to raise some funds in both Katie's and my father's name to support charities I work with.

I have very supportive friends, and despite the current uncertainties with cost of living and most of them are having year-end holidays themselves, many came forward with what they could afford.

That act itself was thoughtful and I received them with much gratitude. I paid my own way to run the Angkor Half last weekend, but my friends contributed to donations made to benefit the street children in Cambodia and some funds were raised locally to assist with an initiative by my friend Ramesh Vadiveloo, “Meals for All”, that provides wholesome meals for the urban poor via our network with soup kitchens in the Klang Valley.

It was my first time in Cambodia, made famous to me by the Tomb Raider series, starring the sexiest humanitarian alive, Angelina Jolie.

One would think that the production of a major Hollywood movie would have benefited the economy, but the reality is the country is still poor.

In my tour of the Angkor ruins, my guide stresses on how fortunate we Malaysians are compared with them. A Google search revealed that Cambodians are living on an average income of US$1.50 (RM5.20) per day, and while the tourism sector seems to be booming, it does not look like Cambodia would achieve high-income status any time soon.

Yet, Cambodians seem to have a better management of their social issues. I dined at a restaurant, one of many, which provides training in the hospitality business to street youth and people who inject drugs (PWID), further employing them at the restaurants.

A chat with the co-manager revealed that such social enterprises help to reduce the number of child beggars and provide the poor and marginalised communities like the PWID skill sets which can bring them out of the streets.

Ironically, on the same day, I found on my Facebook news feed that our Women, Family and Community Development Ministry apparently had cut funds for centres such as the Pusat Bantuan Khidmat Social (PBKS) in Chow Kit, putting such NGOs in limbo.

Many of the volunteers who work at such centres come from the community themselves and while Cambodia appears to be resolving social and poverty issues by assisting their marginalised communities, Malaysia prefers to go backwards, it seems.

If I remember details from the Budget 2015 correctly, RM50 million was allocated for empowering women and a similar amount to empower NGOs.

Shouldn't these monies assist PBKS and the like, as these are NGOs working to help single mothers who are part of the urban poor and women who had to resort to sex work to survive in the jungle of Kuala Lumpur?

These NGOs also assist many marginalised communities in KL, including transgender, PWID and street children – who need assistance and not ignorance by the very ministry whose portfolio should be to resolve the urban poor issue.

With that news, it was with a bit of disappointment in humanity that I started my race on Sunday. But true to Kathrine's word, from the moment strangers helped each other to cross a ditch in the dark to get to the start of the marathon, to chatting with a doctor who works with Médecins sans Frontiéres in Cambodia about HIV and TB in Asia at the starting line, and to strangers caring about each other along the route, lined with children high-fiving every runner and excitedly receiving the goodies some of us give out to them – the tribe of runners once again proved that humanity exists in this world.

From the starting line where we runners rose alongside the sun over the majestic Angkor Wat, to the tour of the temples on foot, where yours truly nearly got trampled by elephants, to crossing the finish line in the height of morning, we humans need only to put one foot down after the other to overcome any heartbreak, grief, and adversary that came our way.

Malaysians will keep fighting for the better of this country, and in that, I have hope.

“Happiness can be found in the darkest of nights, if one only remembers to turn on the light." – Albus Dumbledore – December 10, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.