Tzu Chi Foudations

Yesterday under then invitation of Tzu Chi Foundation Kuala Lumpur, my gf and me visited the Tzu Chi Foundation in Malacca. It was suppose to be a graduation ceremony for the students who have completed various courses offered by the foundation and proud to say that my gf have also complete her basic violin lesson course with them, hence, she is also suppose to be graduating. I must tell you, I am really impressed by the facilities they have there.

The land was donated by a business couple who initially wanted to build a fabric manufacturing factory but later it was donated to Tzu Chi Foundation. Now, they have used that piece of land to build a nice clinic, known as "Buddhist Tzu Chi Free Clinic (Malacca)", with both Western and Chinese medical practices to serve the general public as a free clinic every Sunday and also they have a dental clinic setup that is able to treat 2 patience at the same time as there were 2 dental chairs available side by side. Besides that, the clinic also have a small surgery room to help hemodialysis patient to implant the dialysis port for free. All in the name of charity.

Within that facilities, they also have a recycling collection center, where old unwanted goods e.g. papers, cardboard / boxes, aluminium cans, steel can etc. are collected and sold for recycling to generate funds to sustain their charity organisation.

Then, they have this "Jing-Si Books and Cafe" bookstore that sells various collection of Buddhism teaching books, motivational books, books written by various masters, stationery's, meal sets (as they promote the use of reusable containers and cutlery's), some healthy biscuits, nutritional drinks etc besides serving some nice teas and coffees there.

Attached to this building, there is 4 rooms where various skills namely, tea art, DIY handicraft, floral arrangement, yoga, sign language, violin, etc. skills were taught.

For the Malacca branch, they also have a kindergarten, called "Tzu Chi Humanity School and Kindergarten", which is housed in the "Tzu Chi Academy" building. Unlike any other kindergartens outside, the students here have to be independent. They have strict rules and regulations to follow, e.g. wash their own dishes after meals, learn the teaching of the masters etc. The kids have to be there at the kindergarten from morning 8.30am until the evening 5.30pm, as they want to ensure the kids cultivate the good habit. They have found that just keeping the kids for half a day, say 8.30am until noon say about 12.30pm, when the kids reach home after school, they have gone back to their own bad habit, e.g. being lazy, getting the maid (if any) to do everything for them etc. Therefore, they keep the kids for the whole day, so those good habits are instill in them as much as possible.

The main building for is the "Majestic Still Thougths Hall". There were 4 missions being promoted, namely, Mission of Culture, Mission of Education, Mission of Medicine and Mission of Charity being drawn on one side of the wall and on the other side, 4 main activities being drawn, namely, Community Volunteers, Environmental Protection, Bone Marrow Donation and International Relief.

As you enter the main door, you will enter to the "Spiritual Culture Hall". On the left to this hall another hall houses a very big comfortable room that can easily fit up to where there were 3 projectors, 2 cameras and a good sound system. In the hall, there were also the AV department and the animation / editing / filming department that control all the presentations, sound, slides, live videos etc.

On the left side, there is another room where again, a very comfortable area where people can sit and meditate. The whole place is fully air-condition, clean, bright and really comfortable.

The team there took extra care with all the chairs have a fabric cover on the legs (something like socks on human) to prevent the chairs from leaving marks on the floors. All the chairs were even marked with the foundation's Chinese name besides having a ID number to them.

They also have big kitchen where vegetarian food is prepared. At about 12pm, we were served with vegetarian lunch. The menu for the day is chicken rice with marinated cucumber and carrot with sweet and sour bean curd (tofu).

Overall, we spend the whole morning until about 3pm there. It was a nice experience. It is really worth the drive there.

I am really proud to see that there were to many Malaysians that is a member of this great foundation and really proud to say, I am also a volunteer myself too.....