Last year I uploaded a post that went wildly popular, compared to the others at that time. (See Comment Box below for a link that post.) It was about when I met Aydarus al-Habshi. These past few days I’ve been meeting him again.
Some years ago he started Return cafe to reach out to people and did it successfully. Then later in an office lot above the cafe, he set up a small space where he could teach, and squeeze in to live there with his family. This was called Revamp.
When I met him last year, he said he’s closing the cafe that was not making losses. People came to him to improve and some end up working there. They got so busy with the cafe that there was no time to learn thus a defeated purpose.
They then went into helping to organize affordable Islamic weddings. As that went well, it then became a thing and a way to fund themselves. This was named Relite. The photo you see is a wedding organized by them. Pic via Hanis Rohayat.
This year I met him at a large semi-detahed house in a somewhat good upper-middle class neighbourhood. Revamp left their old small quaint base in the city for this huge residential space with about the same rent cost. It’s amazing. Then he said,
‘But there’s one problem Zain.
We’re not thankful for it.’
https://www.facebook.com/thezaingallery/photos/a.374635982729864.1073741832.361941593999303/381245465402249/?type=3&theater