Murphy helps make life easier for poor families

0

EASY AND EFFICIENT: Perera (second right) explains the efficiency of using MyKad technology to facilitate the distribution of aid as Pointer (left), a representative of Bintulu District Office Kiprawi Mohd Mokhtar and Hoh (right) look on.

BINTULU: Murphy Sarawak Oil Co Ltd (Murphy Sarawak) has donated RM104,000 to MyKasih Love My Neighbourhood’s food aid and training programme.

The donation helps to support 100 low income families here (Bintulu) and Kota Marudu (Sabah) for a year purchase of essential items.

This is the first time that Murphy Sarawak is partnering with MyKasih Foundation in the programme.

Under this programme, Murphy Sarawak will provide an allowance of RM40 per family every two weeks to purchase items such as rice, sugar, flour, milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil.

The money is credited into the recipients’ MyKad (account).

The families in Bintulu can make their purchases at New World Mart at Parkcity Shopping Mall, while those families in Kota Marudu can make their purchases at Milimewa Supermarket.

Murphy Sarawak director of operations Hoh Swee Chee handed over the donation to chief executive officer of MyKasih Foundation Jeff Perera at a ceremony held at Parkcity Shopping Mall, yesterday, which was also attended by several of the recipients and their family members, and representatives from Murphy Sarawak.

“We are happy to team up with MyKasih Foundation in this initiative and we hope our contribution will help them in some small ways to defray the cost of purchasing daily food items,” Hoh said.

He said that Murphy was inspired with what MyKasih Love My Neighbourhood programme had set out to achieve in reaching out to Malaysian families in need of help.

He said the contribution was part of Murphy’s community outreach activities in Bintulu.

Meanwhile, Perera said: “Most charity programmes take the manual hand-out approach and this normally involves multiple parties or middlemen. From the time aid leaves the donor, to the time aid reaches the recipient, mishandling of aid might occur in the process resulting in aid not reaching the recipients in full.

“MyKasih programme addresses these concerns with an innovative way of delivering aid to the recipients in an accurate and efficient manner using MyKad and all donations are passed in full to the recipients.”

Perera said that close to 8,000 families in 75 locations nationwide, were now able to purchases grocery items at partner retail stores.

Keith Pointer, the CEO of Destiny Properties, the entity which owns New World Mart said: “The system is fair, uncomplicated and gets the funds direct to those in need without any unnecessary administration.

“We believe that with the joint venture and collaboration between Murphy Sarawak and New World Mart, others will take the initiative and be a part of the programme.”

He said that New World Mart would also be a secondary sponsor — contributing another 10 per cent of the Murphy fund for educational programmes for children and adults.

He added that New World Mart was committed to the social responsibility programme and “being associated with Mykasih is without a doubt the way forward”.