#Star50: Star Golden Hearts Award recipient overcomes adversity to keep helping others

Tang (second from right), founder of PWD Smart FarmAbility, with co-founder Mok (right) presenting a Hope Box terrarium of organic vegetables to a family in need. Photos: PWD Smart FarmAbility

Dr Billy Tang is a great example of not letting adversity define him nor his abilities.

After a car accident in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, left him paralysed from the waist down six years ago, he threw his focus into urban farming, developing a model to help poor and marginalised communities get access to fresh, nutritious food sustainably.

The 55-year-old agriculturist and researcher set up a social enterprise called PWD Smart FarmAbility and, last year, introduced the Hope Box Project, which offers organic vegetable terrariums for adoption or sale in aid of various beneficiaries.

The terrariums, which can self-regenerate for at least three months and up to a year without fertilisers, act as a form of fresh food bank conveniently located where the recipients live.

From the initial three varieties, the team has successfully grown five varieties of vegetables in the terrariums.

“We have been deploying terrariums with the Brazilian spinach, red watercress and sayur manis. Meanwhile, we also have the Mexican mint and Perpetual spinach but due to our production capacity, we need more time to scale the production of these two varieties,” explained Tang.

Each Hope Box can be adopted for RM150.

To date, more than 3,500 terrariums have been adopted by various corporations, foundations and individuals from all walks of life, and over 650 terrariums deployed to homes.

Currently, PWD Smart FarmAbility has generated funds to supply 900 heads of tilapia and 1.8 tonnes of organic vegetables a month to the underpriviledged for a period of six months.

“We are working together with our impact partner in the north (Penang), Kairos Agriculture, to deploy another 350 terrariums to the northern needy communities identified by World Humanitarian Drive Malaysia.

“Our target is to deploy 800 new terrariums to the homes of the poor by the end of August, and 3,000 terrariums by the end of 2021. We are working very hard to meet these targets despite the continuous lockdowns, which pose various challenges to our business activities,” said Tang.

All funds raised for terrarium adoption is strictly for marginalised communities such as the PWDs (Persons with Disabilities), single-parent households, invisible poor, Orang Asli, drug rehab centres, homeless shelters and prisons, added Tang.

To decentralise food production and enhance their social impact, Tang and his team also set up mini satellite terrarium production hubs in centres with an established network of PWDs, with plans to start these hubs in welfare homes and Orang Asli groups soon.

Fresh fish venture

Another project carried out by the social enterprise is Feeding Without Borders, which supplies underprivileged families with fresh red tilapia fish grown in an outdoor aquaponic farm that does not use antibiotics.

Over 1,000 fish were adopted by donors from Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, Cambodia and the Philippines last year.

For their work, the social enterprise was recognised as one of the 10 winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2020, an annual award that celebrates Malaysian unsung heroes.

PWD Smart FarmAbility was also one of the two Gamuda Inspiration Award winners, which came with a grant of RM50,000.

Currently, the social enterprise has generated funds to supply 900 heads of tilapia and 1.8 tonnes of organic vegetables a month to various community groups, for a period of six months. The funds were donated by an overseas foundation.

To date, more than 3,500 terrariums have been adopted by various corporations, foundations and individuals from all walks of life, and over 650 terrariums deployed to homes.

Their work has also caught the attention of World Bank Group Malaysia, with Tang being invited as a panellist to the Malaysia Economic Monitor (MEM) 2020.

Following MEM2020, they were officially invited to contribute monthly to the Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) in the area of Urban Farming and Permaculture policies.

On July 9 this year, the Inspiring Humanitarian Award was presented to Tang and Samantha Mok (PWD Smart FarmAbility’s co-founder) by the UK-based World Humanitarian Drive (WHD) organisation for “serving and inspiring humanity with their good deeds”.

“We are also working with World Humanitarian Drive on our ‘Feeding Without Borders’ project and we’re hoping to register our office in London as soon as it is possible.”

Tang said they are working very closely with their advisor, Prof Datuk Dr G.P. Doraisamy, the secretary general of World Humanitarian Drive Malaysia, to drive their advocacy to Britain.

“Our efforts have already been endorsed by WHD UK founder Dr Abdul Syed Basit – and our dream is to meet the Queen of England!”

Meanwhile, Tang said they are currently working hard to scale up their production, impact and network with organisations who work on the ground and deal directly with marginalised groups.

“There is still so much more to be done, especially in the areas of raising awareness and educating the public about restoring soil health and nutrition in our food systems, regenerative agriculture, ethical farming and traceability,” said Tang.