A DISABLED, stateless mother, who is missing both legs and right arm due to a fever she contracted when young, is selling doughnuts in Ipoh to earn a living after tutoring herself using online recipes.
According to Bernama, Zaitun Ibrahim, 35 took nearly eight months to look up online recipes on YouTube to improve her craft. She sells her homemade goods at the Padang Polo in Ipoh at 5pm with her husband, Haizul Yit, 45, for which she earns RM100 per day.
She added that she turned to online platforms with expensive cooking classes for guidance in creating fluffy doughnuts.
“The money I have is just enough to feed me, my husband and my 17-year-old daughter, to continue surviving and because of that, I only refer to YouTube to learn how to cook.”
“Based on the videos (on YouTube), I improved the existing recipe in order to maintain the quality of my doughnuts and I help my family by selling them,” she explained.
Zaitun’s doughnuts are priced at RM5 for three pieces equipped with various flavours such as chocolate, strawberry and banana.
She then reflected on her hardships, detailed how her parents were struggling financially, and added that she does not have an identification document due to her biological parents being Thai nationals.
“I was birthed by a midwife without the right birthing equipment and on top of that I was tested by family problems when my father left us behind to fend for ourselves.
“Because of this, I am not qualified to apply for any aid nor incentives for my disability from the Social Welfare Department (JKM) and it is upsetting when I cannot receive any treatment from government hospitals and now have to rely on pharmacies because private clinics are too expensive,” she said.
In spite of her ill fortune, she is determined to continue changing her family’s fate by venturing into other businesses, from basket weaving to making bouquets.
She hopes that the government would grant her the much-awaited MyKad one day.
