Helping people to get the most out of life is our purpose, and that has always motivated us to do what we do. May was indeed an eventful month for us as we were able to give back to our community through our various CSR initiatives such as PRUVolunteer activities, financial education and relief aid programmes.
With the spirit of #WeDOGood, Prudence Foundation and Prudential Malaysia launched an initiative through PRUCare Relief Fund to help those affected by Covid-19 by donating a total of RM205,000. This fund was opened to the agency force for their nominations of any organisations or welfare homes in need of support. Throughout April and May, our PRUVolunteers travelled to the respective NGOs across the country to show our support in their work as well as to meet the respective community members. We are humbled to support our local communities through these 12 NGOs, partnering them in their efforts to provide aid to the respective communities. The list below consists of the 12 NGOs that we supported in their aid to help their respective communities.
In our efforts to empower the underprivileged rural community in Kota Belud, Sabah to become more sustainable in the long term, our PRUCare Sustainable Farming initiative received the support of our PRUVolunteers from the Kota Kinabalu agency force. The primary focus of the visit is to help the community restore their farms by growing new seedlings and as a result, help them increase their household income and improve their standard of living. From clearing weeds to fertilising the soil and even helping them make a fishpond, our PRUVolunteers were spirited in assisting the communities with their farming efforts. We are hopeful that through this project, we can continue to help the communities financially affected by the Covid-19 pandemic recover faster.
As part of our financial education programme for kids, we organised the #ChaChingDoGood Challenge to highlight the importance of Donate in our fundamental money management concepts of Earn, Save, Spend and Donate. Our Sarawak Challenge winners organised a food sale with the purpose of helping members of their local community that were affected by the pandemic with provision of groceries. With a seed fund from our Cha-Ching programme, our talented winners doubled the funds by preparing baked goods to be sold to the public in which the profits were then used to purchase groceries to be donated to the local community. This challenge highlighted the concept of donate, sharing with the kids on the importance and the joy of donating to the communities in need, building a more financially aware generation of children.
We are honoured to have partnered with Agensi Kaunseling dan Pengurusan Kredit (AKPK) for three years, sharing the same vision of empowering and equipping the low-income community with financial knowledge. Through this partnership, we have launched a Congregated Financial Education (CFE) programme with the objective to share financial knowledge to PRUKasih community members and ensure they are able to make sound financial decisions and mange their finances wisely. In May, we were able to hold a CFE facilitator training session to train our volunteers to be familiar with the content and structure of the programme, so that they are able to guide our participants to learn effectively. Our facilitators learned about the new platform, experienced the syllabus as well as had the opportunity to practice the activities through the virtual space. Needless to say, our volunteers are excited to carry out the CFE programme with our participants.
In partnership with Prudence Foundation, we brought back Mapathon, an international PRUVolunteer event with the focus of improving digital maps for vulnerable communities living in areas that are at risk. Through this programme, we learned that the standard of living of these communities are in bad condition due to the lack of digital mapping making support efforts by aid providers difficult. By mapping out these vulnerable areas, we will help humanitarian and medical aid providers respond to humanitarian crises such as natural disasters, disease outbreaks as well as epidemics with better efficiency. Our PRUVolunteers worked together with volunteers from other countries along with Prudence Foundation to support the Mapathon programme organised by Doctors Without Borders. We have managed to improve the digital mapping for Nampula, Mozambique with the intent to help humanitarian organisations improve their disaster response activities which in turn, help save lives.
We are extremely thankful for the support from our partners and from our PRUVolunteers in sharing the passion to help those in need. As we approach the end of May, our reflection towards how we have been able to play a part in our fellow Malaysians’ lives will continue to guide our future initiatives.