PETALING JAYA: Malaysians are a generous lot with many still prefer to give back to society despite concerns over the rising cost of items.
During the month-long Ramadan, NGOs say many donors came forward to help the needy and less fortunate.
Their concerns, however, are whether they will have enough funds in the coming months to support the communities they serve.
Yayasan Chow Kit chief executive officer Ananti Rajasingam said concerns over donations and food supplies might arise after the festive season.
“Contributions are plenty during festive seasons and Ramadan is no exception. Our worry is the months after,” she said when contacted.
The number of people seeking assistance had also increased, Ananti said.
“We conduct thorough background checks on these families to ensure they are eligible to receive aid,” she said, adding that cross checks were also done with other NGOs to ensure there was no overlap in extending help.
Ananti, however, said they were fortunate to receive steady contributions throughout the Ramadan period.
“This allows us to serve hot meals to the children during sahur and iftar meals.
“Corporate and individual donors also stepped up to help,” she said, adding that individual donors made up almost half the contributions during Ramadan.
Apart from food aid, Ananti said another concern was raising funds for the children’s education needs such as school fees.
“We have yet to reach our target and will continue to work hard towards this,” she said.
Pertiwi Soup Kitchen founder Datuk Munirah Abdul Hamid said work went on regardless of the time of year.
“We try to be careful (with our expenditures) and manage resources to last as long as possible due to rising costs. We have been lucky so far,” she said.
She added that special menus were also prepared on Hari Raya with ketupat, rendang and briyani.
There were also fewer homeless people on the streets now, she said, adding that there were more urban poor families coming forward to receive meals.
For Beyond Borders Malaysia, the coming Hari Raya celebration would be the first that they were unable to distribute food and groceries to the needy.
“It will be the first since 2020. We tried to hold a buka puasa event for some 500 poor folks at the Desa Mentari People’s Housing Project this year but it was unsuccessful (due to insufficient funds).
“We were also unable to send groceries for the coming Hari Raya despite requests,” its founder Mahi Ramakrishnan said.
Similar plans for Christmas last year were also scrapped due to lack of funds, she said.
Mahi said food requests also increased over the years with the rising cost of goods taking a toll on their funds.
“Besides cooked meals, we also distributed groceries and women’s care packs but things have slowed down.
“While we have given out more than 100,000 meals since the Covid-19 pandemic, we are not able to do much now due to donor fatigue,” she said, adding that most of their donors had been supporting them since 2020.
Mahi added that economic downturn alongside rising prices forced donors to be more selective.
“Our regular donors are afraid of either losing their jobs or even the possibility of being unable to put food on the table,” she said, adding that it was easier to get funds in 2020 but things tapered down last year.
She suggested for NGOs and groups to come together and collectively collect funds through creative ideas.
