PRUKasih: A decade of giving back
Our 10-year journey of helping the underserved communities get the most out of life
As part of our efforts to give back to the communities that we operate in, we want to help build financial resilience among underserved families and children in Malaysia. Through our flagship corporate responsibility programme – PRUKasih, we have been helping people get the most out of life, especially so for the underserved communities for the past 10 years. Taking the word “kasih” or love as our inspiration, this sponsored protection plan provides temporary financial relief to urban low-income households (LIHs) and handicapped individuals and is one of the many ways we are helping Malaysians to achieve financial freedom and peace of mind.
PRUKasih was born in 2011 as a result of partnership between Prudential Assurance Malaysia Berhad (PAMB) and Yayasan Generasi Gemilang (YGG), where eligible urban LIHs from participating communities are able to receive temporary financial relief when breadwinners of their families are unable to generate income due to an accident, illness or death. Through this initiative, we provide affected and eligible beneficiaries with food vouchers and housing allowances, while affected families of deceased beneficiaries are provided with financial assistance of up to one year to enable them to find their feet again.
From a single community outreach in 2011, PRUKasih has now reached out to 35 communities within 10 years. Via the programme, we are able to provide underserved Malaysians with financial freedom and peace of mind, reaching 40,500 households and paying more than RM10 million in claims to help them during unfortunate events.
As PRUKasih continues with its charter of providing financial protection to the LIHs, we started to expand its scope by providing financial education knowledge to the PRUKasih communities in 2019. Financial education is another of our corporate responsibility pillars - our Cha-Ching and Duit Right programmes for primary and secondary school children respectively aims to promote financial responsibility in children and empower them to make positive financial decisions. The introduction of the adult financial education programme underscores our commitment to increase financial awareness among the adults in the PRUKasih communities, as well as to assist PRUKasih claimants to understand the importance of money management in their daily activities.
To help us with this endeavour, we partnered with the Malaysian Financial Planning Council (MFPC) and Agensi Kaunseling & Pengurusan Kredit (AKPK) to deliver the adult financial education programme that targets adults, where these congregated sessions were piloted to 1,317 individuals in 35 communities.
Following up from the financial education programme, we began to look into providing focused and practical support to these communities by helping them to achieve a sustainable future. Therefore in 2020, with that objective in mind, and befittingly, on our 10th anniversary, we collaborated with YGG, Taylor’s Education Group, and Institut Keusahawanan Negara (INSKEN) to pilot the PRUKasih Entrepreneurship Programme (PEP) to equip low-income groups with entrepreneurship skills and knowledge to help them build a financially resilient future.
Through this programme, we selected 32 participants from 70 applications to be in the first cohort. Each participant attended business and mental health knowledge learning sessions through virtual classrooms (due to the COVID-19 pandemic). They were then invited to a pitch session after which equipment grants were awarded to eligible participant by Prudential to help them kick start their business.
After seven months of virtual training and practical sessions, 18 PRUKasih Entrepreneurship Programme participants were presented at a virtual graduation ceremony to celebrate their hard work, resilience and achievement. And most importantly, their entrepreneurial journey did not end at the ceremony. The graduates have continued their journey with INSKEN to further develop their entrepreneurial and business growth strategy.
Following the successful graduation of the first cohort, we have rolled out Phase 2 of the programme in March 2021 with 70 new participants.
Despite the challenges brought about by COVID-19, we remain dedicated to the PRUKasih communities and will continue to support and grow our Corporate Responsibility activities while staying close to our purpose to help people get the most out of life.