Healing within

A miracle showed Myriam Oliveres Abdullah the path of health and happiness.

THE doctors had already announced their findings and the prognosis of her brother, who was in the Intensive Care Unit in Canada, was bad.

Myriam Oliveres at the helm of the festival wants to ensure women are independent, skilled and happy.

“The doctors shook their heads and told the family that my brother was not going to survive,” she said, with tears rimming her eyes, though the incident happened almost a decade ago when her brother was involved in an accident.

“While everyone was stunned and shocked, I asked in a small voice if I would be allowed to sit beside my brother and pray,” she added.

Myriam Oliveres Abdullah sat in a corner of the room, and began practising her Reiki. By then, she had already been doing Reiki for more than seven years. She hoped that her use of Reiki was enough to bring her brother back from the brink of death.

Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation which also promotes healing.

As if the incident only happened yesterday, Myriam breaks out into a smile and said: ”After three days and nights, my brother, who was on life support machines, finally woke up. This surprised the doctors more than it did me.”

That was the turning point in Myriam’s life and she vowed that whatever healing powers that helped bring her brother back, she would use to touch the lives of others.

Having made Malaysia her home for more than 19 years now, Myriam is finally realising a dream that she has long harboured: using her knowledge and her skills in more than 20 different types of natural healing methods to help empower women.

She hopes to do this by organising the Health and Happiness Festival next month, a two-day event from March 21, aimed at raising funds for the creation of the Wealth of Women Centre or simply known as the W.O.W. Centre.

“A lot of people think that wealth is just money. For me, wealth means self-love, self-esteem, self-respect, purpose, talent, passion, health and knowledge. And I want to help women who are underprivileged and abused to find such wealth,” she said.

The centre, said Myriam, will be a place for women, single mothers and those who cannot afford to learn skills on their own, such as sewing, cooking, massaging and other healing skills, besides arming themselves with entrepreneurial skills and for them to survive on their own.

“This is the first centre where selected Malaysian women would be sponsored to learn, experiment and practise not only entrepreneurship and business skills, different healing modalities, marketing and the like, but also be guided and supported to create their own businesses and partnership.

“The forte of the programme is that the women would have access to a recognised qualification from the Australian Vocational School,” she added.

Myriam said she had harboured this dream for so many years. It is her hope that creating such a centre would see the growth of educated and economically independent women who live creative, fulfilling and healthy lives, who help other women get ahead in life while still maintaining their focus on their family and participating fully in society.

Women, she said, when given a push in the right direction, were able to achieve more than they target for.

“Which is why the motto for this centre will be “Moving Women from Misery to Victory!”.

The two-day event, on March 21 and 22, at the Millennium Hotel in Jalan Bukit Bintang is supported by the Health, Natural Resources and Environment, Rural Development, and Women, Family and Community Development Ministries.

Patron for this festival is the Sultanah of Pahang, Sultanah Hajjah Kalsom, who is also a health enthusiast and a practitioner of Pilates. Among the notable speakers at the two-day festival are Health Ministry director-general Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican, alternative medicine practitioner Dr M. Rajen, Vashtu Sastra columnist T. Selva, the greenest man on Earth Matthias Gelber from Germany, Muslim Reiki master Babak Sorkhpour from Iran, and many more healing practitioners from around the world.

For more information or if you wish to participate, check the websites (www.healthandhappinessfestival.com and www.wealth-of-women.com) or call 03-92079788 for further information.