Jomfund_B40 is a group consisting of five undergraduate students from University of Malaya who strive for success in organising an online fundraising event named “Covid-19 Fundraiser: Helping the Less Fortunate”. The project is carried out as a part of the continuous assessment for GLT1015 Advanced Professional Writing.
It is known that Covid-19 pandemic has caused a significant economic impact globally. In addition to the global crisis and economic slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it also caused a budget crisis in Malaysian households. The unemployment of household heads and salary reduction of employees become the factors that lead to the decrease in household income of Malaysian. Being the bottom tier income earner of the country, B40 community is the most affected community during this Covid-19 pandemic.
Recently, an article entitled “Covid-19 forces Malaysia’s poor to live on instant noodles, abandon school: UN Study” (South China Morning Post, 24 August 2020) has reported about the hardship of poor families due to the outbreak of Covid-19. As the consequences of the running out of savings of this community caused by great deal of debt carried and little income during the pandemic, many of them could lose access to necessities such as food and housing. Students are unable to continue school or committed fully to online class because they have no access to computers or the internet necessary for efficient e-learning. Besides, issues of malnutrition occurred as they highly depend on canned food or instant noodles to survive. Therefore, we hope that the implementation of this online fundraising event may help in reducing the burden of the B40 community during the pandemic.
These are the objectives of our group project:
- To reduce the burden of the B40 community during Covid-19.
- To create awareness about Covid-19 among communities.
- To provide students came from B40 families with basic educational needs.
As a starting point in organising a fundraising event, we target ourselves to raise RM1000 for Great Vision Charity (Persatuan Harapan Mulia) in support of their charity mission. The funds collected will be utilized on preparing care packages for the B40 families in PPR Pantai Ria as well as assist in funding in study aid for the needy students under Great Vision Charity’s support. The project will be publicized on social media like Instagram and Facebook to attract the attention of the public as well as increase the number of donors participating in the event.
“Giving is not just about making a donation, it’s about making a difference.” said Kathy Calvin, CEO and current President of the United Nations Foundation. Let’s help them to go through this hard time by joining our fundraising event. Your little contribution might result in a huge difference in their lives!
