(Left) Kelvin Wan and Hung Shung Huo have been hard at work helping the needy during these difficult times.
KUCHING (Jan 27): Non-governmental organisations (NGO) in the city have been complementing the state government’s efforts in providing much needed relief to the people as they cope with the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hope Place founder Kelvin Wan told The Borneo Post that their office had seen an increase of 40 per cent in the number of call-ins requesting for food assistance since March last year.
“Most of the call-ins were from daily wage workers whose income had taken a hit during the pandemic due to a lack of jobs. As we have limited stock of food, we only give them the minimum amount of dry food, such as one bag of rice, which may keep them going for another two weeks,” said Wan.
Wan remarked that public donations to their organisation had also decreased during the pandemic last year as people had mostly been staying indoors or were facing financial constraints themselves.
As food stocks were limited, they had to manage them properly and deliver them to communities that needed them the most first, he said.
“Besides that, we also provided aid to the flood victims last week by working closely with the state Welfare Department as well as enlisting the assistance of modified four-wheel-drive vehicles to deliver necessities to flooded areas,” he said, pointing out the organisation was currently looking after about 200 families.
Wan stressed that their organisation did not provide cash assistance to the needy, despite some who had called in claiming to be facing difficulties in paying their rent.
“Most of the time, an NGO only acts as an assistant to the government, which is still the main actor in providing assistance to the people in difficult times. However, we hope the government could maybe officially appoint an NGO as a backup so that the public’s wellbeing could always be looked after during a disaster,” said Wan.
Kuching Life Care Society founder Hung Sung Huo, meanwhile, said their centre had not witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of call-ins requesting for help, partly because the centre was focusing more on ambulance service and renting out medical equipment.
“There are always some who would request to us not to charge them for the ambulance service due to lack of financial means. We try to be considerate as the ambulance transportation fee is actually being used to pay our workers,” said Hung.
On the contrary, he said there had been many enquiries made to their centre seeking to donate medical equipment, such as wheelchair and beds, during the pandemic.
The society’s founder also pointed out the centre had continue to rent out their medical equipment to those who needed it during the current health crisis.
“As for our plan to build a RM14-million hospice and palliative care centre, we are still short of about RM5 million in funding, as well as waiting for the relevant authorities such as the Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) to approve our building’s blueprint.”
Nonetheless, Hung expects the building project to be tendered during the Chinese New Year festival and the construction would start in the middle of the year.