Small Changes Malaysia was founded with the belief that no one and no contribution is too small to make a difference.
The ongoing lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic allowed us to realise our founders’ beliefs again. Since the beginning of the lockdown on 18th April, SC launched an Online Empowerment Campaign with 3 highly successful fundraisers to great success: the Bantuan Sinar Cemerlang, the Chip In! Shield Our Frontliners, and the Ramadhan fundraisers.
The Bantuan Sinar Cemerlang fundraiser happened from 23rd to 29th March. Kelas Sinar Cemerlang, a weekly free tuition class run by volunteers for primary school students living in PPR Kerinchi, a housing area in Lembah Pantai assigned by the Government for low-income groups. Although classes have now been suspended due to the MCO, Small Changes and Sinar Cemerlang are collecting contributions to help Kelas Sinar Cemerlang students and their families.
The fundraiser started with the goal to collect RM1,200 but ended up fundraising a total of RM3,450! As a result, we were able to help 23 families by providing them with RM150 each! What’s even more heartwarming is when some families reached out to us to let us know that the money really helped alleviate some of their financial struggles!!
The other fundraiser was the Chip In! Shield Our Frontliners fundraiser, which lasted from 31st of March to 3rd of April. As the name suggests, this fundraiser was to benefit our heroic medical frontliners who are working tirelessly to battle the pandemic! We collaborated with local fashion brands AnaAbu and Bambina for this initiative.
The fundraiser aimed to raise about RM30,000 to prepare 1000 personal protective equipment (PPE) for doctors and nurses at Hospital Sungai Buloh, Pejabat Kesihatan Lembah Pantai and Sunway Medical Centre.
Similar to the Bantuan Sinar Cemerlang, our jaws dropped when we saw the total funds raised at the end of the fundraising period: RM32.846.11. This is no small achievement considering the short time frame of the campaign and the impressive amount that was raised!
Due to the overwhelming amount of funds raised, we managed to provide the PPE for more medical personnel! In the end, 1,400 sets of PPEs were given to frontliners from 7 medical centres and a quarantine centre: Hospital Sungai Buloh, Pusat Perubatan Universiti Malaya, Hospital Alor Gajah, Klinik Kesihatan Port Dickson, Hotel International KL ( quarantine centre), Hospital Alor Gajah, Klinik Kesihatan Puchong, Klinik Kesihatan Bukit Pelandok!
The final fundraiser we’ve done (so far!) was the Ramadhan Fundraiser 1.0 (24th to 26th April). This fundraiser was mainly to raise funds for our future projects which aims to help refugees and orphaned children (Project Aspire to Inspire and Project Beanstalk).
The initial target set was RM3,000. Much to our surprise and delight, we managed to exceed our target and raised a total of RM3,363.67. We could not be more grateful for all the overwhelming support we received!
You may have noticed that the last fundraiser was numbered; well, that is because we are launching another Ramadhan Fundraiser called the Ramadhan Fundraiser 2.0! This fundraiser is also part of our Online Empowerment Program. This fundraiser will last for 10 days from the 3rd to the 12th of May with a target of RM12,000.
There will be 4 beneficiaries for the fundraisers: the families from Kelas Sinar Cemerlang, Persatuan Kebajikan Tatawasi, Kakak, and Save School For Refugees & Stepping Stone Living Center.
We decided to help Sinar Cemerlang families and refurbish Save School and Stepping Stone Orphanage because they are our project partners and beneficiaries. Sinar Cemerlang families, in particular, desperately needs our help because they are low-income groups and their incomes are heavily affected by the pandemic. Other than this, we decided to assist KAKAK-refugee, an organisation that helps Afghanistan and Somalian families in the spirit of #MigrantJugaManusia (Immigrants are humans too). These immigrants lack economic opportunity and we believe that we should offer them the dignity every human deserves, rather than deciding their worth based on their contributions to the economy. They are a fairly new organisation that does not have as much outreach as we do. Persatuan Kebajikan Tatwamasi, on the other hand, is struggling to keep up with the increased need for supplies by families
For the fund distribution, RM3,450 will be given to Sinar Cemerlang families (RM150 for each family), RM1,992 will go to Persatuan Kebajikan Tatwamasi (84 families will get RM83 each), RM1,500 will be channelled to KAKAK – Refugees (10 families will benefit from RM150 worth of food supplies each), and finally, RM5,058 will be used by Save School and Stepping Stone Orphanage as funds for the refurbishment of on-site facilities!
The fact that everyone’s small contributions stacked up and led to such mind-blowing outcomes is truly motivational! It doesn’t matter if you donate RM1 or RM1,000. Every effort counts! As we like to say, small changes can lead to big differences. 😉
If you have any questions regarding the fundraisers, don’t hesitate to slide into our DM on our social media pages!
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