I’M elated that a community foundation I helped to establish a few years ago is easing the burden of those directly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yayasan Al-Islah, a foundation that helps the poor and financially-strained residents in Section 7, Shah Alam, has stepped forward to do just that — providing aid to the poor and needy.
It’s a noble effort considering the fact that there have been many residents, including single parents in this middle-class enclave, who have either lost their income due to the pandemic or have become unemployed when companies started to retrench them over the years. Admittedly, I’m one of them since I have been ill for the last five years.
Quoting news reports, the Social Security Organisation stated that the number of job losses in the country had risen. Between March 1 and 29, some 4,917 people have become unemployed. The highest recorded was on March 16 with 428 cases.
Yayasan Al-Islah is one of the exemplary organisations that contribute to lightening the burden of others although it is limited to helping up to 2,000-odd residents.
Around the world, companies and individuals are stepping forward to help their governments and communities to assist those affected by the virus.
In Malaysia, it’s reassuring to see companies making donations to the government to purchase medical equipment for hospitals to combat the contagion.
When there’s insufficient Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for frontliners to an extent that nurses and hospital assistants had to make “makeshift” protection gear from garbage bags, emphatic Malaysians came forward in droves to contribute in cash and kind.
A Covid-19 donation drive was also launched. It goes without saying that many individuals are coming together with their respective initiatives to lighten the burden of the government and community.
Fashion designers from the Malaysian Official Designers’ Association, including the famous designer Radzuan Radziwill, besides a group of inmates from Kajang Prison, are manufacturing PPE for the frontliners.
On social media, it is heartening to see popular photographer Saiful Nang with a group of orphans using their ingenuity to manufacture 17,000 plastic face shields per week, while a couple cleverly uses 3-D printers to create similar equipment.
The novel thing about this is that they are donating them.
I saw a YouTube video which shows Muslim preacher Ustaz Ebit Lew contributing food, face masks and portable toilets to hospitals.
Amid the nationwide efforts, I take pity on fashion entrepreneur Vivy Yusof, who has been criticised for her so-called offensive remarks on the financial aid to be given by the government to those in the Bottom 40 income group.
Vivy doesn’t deserve such criticism as she has played an instrumental role in raising RM1.4 million alongside Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia Response and Relief Team, a non-governmental organisation, to purchase PPE for frontliners.
Besides this, she has distributed aid to B40 households in rural and urban areas, even as far as Terengganu. Now, there’s a petition to oust her as a Universiti Teknologi Mara board member despite all that she has done.
Whatever it is, what we are witnessing today is not just generosity exemplified at its best, it is also about selfless actions by extraordinary Malaysians, who are coming together to fight a silent enemy called Covid-19.
In his televised speech, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin aptly used a Malay aphorism, berat sama dipikul, ringan sama dijinjing (a burden shared is a burden halved), in facing the difficult time together.
Malaysians are demonstrating what a beautiful nation can do together in a time of need — being compassionate.
American essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honourable, to be compassionate and to make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
The writer, a former NST journalist, is now a film scriptwriter whose penchant is finding new food haunts in the country.