charity

Love to Save some lives?

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kidney damage

The National Kidney Foundation provides dialysis treatment for everyone at a huge discount. That’s just part of what they do, but most people associate them with this. I will need to have access to dialysis treatment in the near future – I kinda messed up my kidneys and had to undergo an emergency dialysis back in 2006.

dialysis

I have seen first-hand how the NKF operates, and understand how charities like the NKF require public support to function. My donations in the past have always gone to organizations that I believe in – harm reduction groups sees the bulk of my philanthropy, with Erowid being my favorite group (it’s even tax deductible in the US). On the local front, I tend to support NKF, for obvious reasons.

It’s hard to take care of others in the current economic climate. I’ll be honest and say that I haven’t been contributing much in the past few years. Common excuses:

Donate??? Crazy ah? In the current economic crisis?
Sorry lah…I just got retrenched and I have a family to support.
I don’t even have enough money for myself…

lovetosave

The Love to Save campaign runs for the entire month of June – just click on the charity of your choice and DiGi will donate RM 5 per click, on your behalf. You don’t even have to fork out a single sen!

More of an animal person? Love taking care of the underprivileged? You can also choose to support the following charities:

Nature
SPCA Selangor
Malaysian Nature Society
Borneo Conservation Trust
Global Environment Centre

Medical
National Kidney Foundation (NKF)
IJN Foundation
Hospis Malaysia
Malaysian AIDS Foundation
MAKNA (Majlis Kanser Nasional)

Social
National Council for the Blind Malaysia
Malaysian Council for Child Welfare
Women’s Aid Organization
National Council of Senior Citizens Organisations Malaysia
Persatuan Kebajikan HOPE worldwide Kuala Lumpur

You can also setup your own personal group and promote it using the various social networking tools – Facebook, Twitter, or your own blog. You can even set your MSN status to display the code and append signatures like the one above to your emails!

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I created an NKF group to spread the word among friends and coworkers. I was pleasantly surprised by the speed and ease of registration. It just takes a couple of clicks to reach the registration page, which only requires my email address, age group and the name of my group. Nice!

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I verified my email and the group is good to go after that. The Dashboard is where you go to grab your group link and banners for use in Facebook or as email signatures. You can also keep track of how your group is doing.

The world would be a better place if everyone takes a breather from the rat race and think about others. You too, can make a difference – click on the banner above and enter your email address. DiGi will contribute RM 5 towards the cause with just that one click! Go on, donate with DiGi’s money. You know you want to. 😉

Zuiho Daiko performance @ Sibu Gateway

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zuiho daiko header

Zuiho Daiko is a professional taiko (Japanese drum) group with intellectual disabilities from Nagasaki, Japan. The Rajang Community Service in conjunction with the Sibu Community Services Association (of which the Agape umbrella falls under – the SCSA is apparently the jumbrella) organized the event for the Kanowit, Sibu and Kuching leg of their tour.

The performers were amazing – as event organizers, we were concerned about the acoustics of the venue since it’s an open space, and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist (or the modern cellular biologist/nano physicist equivalent) to know that sound waves attenuates in such conditions.

enthusiastic

However, the taiko drums were really loud and it was an amazing experience to watch them perform.

The show started out with an enthusiastic sonic assault from the taiko drums. Taiko drums are traditional Japanese percussion instruments that were used in feudal warfare. The taiko drums beats signals the troops to advance, retreat or call on allies to jump in.

zuiho players

I love the speech by the Japanese representative that stresses how Japan is now a peaceful country and offers an olive branch to all nations. I guess that strikes a note with the older generation since there was thunderous applause after that statement. Historically, Japan invaded, I mean, occupied, Malaysia (and other Asian countries) during World War II.

There was another great publicity stunt by the leader of the taiko drum troupe when he jumped out from backstage with our local Sarawak drum to perform.

sarawak

The Sarawak drum was given as a souvenir to the drum troupe and this scene was totally unrehearsed and impromptu – the Japanese delegation did not even know about the souvenir until just before the performance when it was handed over.

…beats from the Land of the Rising Sun
(this was one of my press release titles that was rejected and I just wanted to publish it on my blog ;))

zuiho ending

The Zuiho Daiko ensemble performed for 40 minutes before the show ended. The area was packed, the crowd was happy, and overall the event was a success. It was tiring to be a volunteer for charity work, but strangely rewarding as well.

zuiho pose

The full postmortem of the event organization will be up soon. Cheers!

Zuiho Daiko taiko drum performance preview

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preview

The Zuiho Daiko drum troupe from Japan performed in front of an enormous crowd last night. The drummers with intellectual disabilities were amazing! We were concerned about the acoustics due to the event being held in an open space, but the taiko drums were more than loud enough and the performers were giving it their best despite their grueling schedule. They had performed at a private function in Kanowit just 3 hours prior to this and taken the 1 hour journey back to play straight at the main Sibu Gateway function.

Zuiho Daiko is a professional taiko drum group with intellectual disabilities and this is their rendition with a flute playing a tune similar to Home on the Range before the taiko drums jumped in and the sonic assault begins. It’s spectacular, spectacular! =D

I’ll have the full writeup done later, they are heading to the airport now for the flight to Kuching for this afternoon’s performance at 3 pm at tHe Spring. Zuiho Daiko is also heading to Penang to perform but I don’t know their schedule over there since it’s handled by a different charity organization.

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