A PLACE I CAN CALL A HOME AWAY FROM HOME

A place I can call my home away from home was a tagline I used in my presentation to potential clients. I got this tagline from my years of working with the hotel management division of Reliance Pacific Berhad. I was the marketing and operations manager for the 16 Seri Malaysia Hotels in the whole of Peninsular Malaysia. We used to describe our budget hotels as an affordable place, a home away from home. Our décor was very cultural Malay home style with lots of floral drapes, batik pictures and we used tiled floors instead of the usual carpet, just to be like an average home in Malaysia.

In the like manner we want our homes or centres to be like a home, our home. Where we have good friendly people who became our friends, good clean places, good homely cooked food and have a good time

But the truth is, most of the current homes are just not good enough. There are not many good centres around that I can called a home away from home. Most make me want to run away from the homes or centres. During my rounds visiting and reviewing many centres, I can see a big divide from one end of the standard spectrum to the other extreme end. If I apply the tagline to the homes or centres I visited, I will not call most of them a home away from home.

But please do not look down on them, most have existed since a long time ago to meet certain segment of the society and had in many ways contributed to the society. The have played their parts to meet both physical needs and financial abilities of many children who have no choice but to send their beloved parents to a centre.