Christmas is around the corner and what better way to spread love and goodwill than giving your time, money, clothes or food to charities in Malaysia…
If you work with a charity or an NGO in Malaysia that you feel should be on this list, please leave the details in the comments below.
Schools
IDEAS Academy
Ideas Academy provides secondary education to refugees, stateless and undocumented children in their learning centre in Pudu. Most of these children do not have documents, and therefore cannot go to regular schools. Started in September 2014 with the first class of 24 students, the school now has over 200 students and a growing wait list. If you want to know how to support them, have a look here. You can also email them here.
Teach for Malaysia
TFM’s vision is to ensure that one day, all children in Malaysia will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. Through the Fellowship Programme, Fellows are placed in high-need schools across Malaysia. For two years, they create impact in their classrooms and develop themselves as leaders. Monthly donations help Teach For Malaysia keep its fundraising costs low, while generating steady cash flow for their operations. Here’s how you can make a difference!
Dignity for Children
More than 70,000 children in Malaysia live in poverty and have no access to public schools. Dignity for Children aims to break the cycle of poverty through quality education for children between the ages of 2 and 18. If you wish to donate to the school to help them educate children, have a look here.
Orphanages
Lighthouse Children’s Welfare Home
This home in Bangsar offers vulnerable children a safe place where they can get away from their difficult backgrounds. Lighthouse Children’s Welfare Home is run by Mr. and Mrs. Steven and the focus is to bring the children up in a loving, family focused environment among brothers and sisters of different ages ranging from 2 to 20. Lighthouse is in need of help for rentals, utilities, food and nutrition, education and medical bills. More about how to donate here.
Agathians Shelter
Agathians Shelter in Petaling Jaya is an orphanage, housing 40 boys who are either orphans, abandoned and/or from single parent or broken families. Help is needed to raise funds for school expenses, utility bills, food cost to maintain a balanced diet for the kids, as well as household items. You can help them by donating or volunteering.
Shepherd’s Centre Foundation
Foster home the Shepherd’s Centre Foundation caters for orphans and underprivileged children. It was established in 1993 by pastors Jacop and Bridget David. It started off as a small home for a handful of children and today it has over 90 children residing in centres located in Bukit Beruntung and in Semenyih.
Other than cash donations, they need school uniforms, bags and shoes for both primary and secondary school children and new clothing for the children (ages 4-19 years old) as they do outgrow their clothes fast. If you’d like to help, please email them here.
Food
The Lost Food Project
“Feed the hungry, not the landfill”. The motto of TLFP clearly shows what it is all about, which is ‘rescuing’ food which is still in good condition. Every day 3,000 tons of good food is thrown away by supermarkets and restaurants in Malaysia. The Lost Food Project ‘rescues’ some of this food and gives it to those who need it. In addition to financial support, this organisation can also use food and other goods. Have a look at our article about TLFP.
PERTIWI Soup Kitchen
PERTIWI Soup Kitchen provides a humanitarian food-aid service to the homeless and poor. Meanwhile, the PERTIWI Healthcare Services project helps the homeless and hard-core poor who seek basic treatment for common ailments. Donations are welcome in cash and goods, read more here. Volunteers are also welcome.
Need to Feed the Need
The NTF organisation is a community initiative to help the homeless and urban poor. Providing meals and other basic essentials helps them to get by. NTF operates from the Medan Tuanku Feeding centre, that has facilities such as washrooms, a medical room, a prayer room and washing machines/dryers. The organisation aims to provide one meal every Thursday to the less fortunate in KL. You can sponsor a meal, prepare dishes or volunteer your time at the centre.
For more information email them here.
Kechara Soup Kitchen
Kechara Soup Kitchen is an NGO that provides hot vegetarian food, medical aid, counselling and job placements to the poor and homeless in KL, Penang and Johor. They also provide groceries to urban poor families. They always welcome donations, in cash or kind, and volunteers. Would you like to donate? Have a look here.
Merchandise
Our Malaysia
The Chin community from Myanmar makes some incredibly nice bags, buntings, and aprons in a big variety of designs and materials. More about Our Malaysia here.
Greater Action
This foundation, led by French national Ms. Julie Das, helps refugees and urban poor families in Malaysia by selling their handmade merchandise and lovely home-made Afghan food. Worth trying! You can find out how to order here.
The focus of Greater Action is on livelihood, education, maternity, emergency health care and women empowerment programmes for tailoring, cooking and baking. Find out more here about their projects. Would you like to contribute financially to the projects? Find out more here.
To enquire how to help or volunteer, please contact Julie via WhatsApp at 016 927 2705.
Cuci Ceria Project
The Cuci Ceria Project offers sustainability to its sewing team, that consists of refugees and B40 women, and gives to communities in need by providing free hygiene kits. They currently sell beautiful Christmas tree decorations and Christmas face masks.
Mang Tha
Mang Tha (meaning ‘sweet dream’ in Burmese), is lead by and supports Chin women refugees living in Malaysia. As well as embroidering towels for The Lost Towel Project, the artisans at Mang Tha create and sell beautifully handcrafted items. The centre also runs training courses where the women learn these arts, empowering them to provide a better future for themselves and their families.
The Lost Towel Project
The Lost Towel Project provides safe and sustainable support to a community of Chin refugee women living in Kuala Lumpur. The Chin artisans personalise the towels by embroidering your name/s or logo onto the quick drying, super absorbent towels. You can order them here.
With your support, the artisans are able to provide for themselves and their families. Funds from the towel orders also help to support women’s centre Mang Tha. TLTP is a sister project of The Lost Food Project.
Badass Monkies
The Badass Monkies NGO sells BAM merchandise to support the underprivileged families in the region. They focus on basic humanitarian needs of individuals and families, providing dry foods, toiletries, furniture and some financial support for those in crisis circumstances.
Would you like to support BAM by buying their merch? Have a look here!
Supporting women
Tenaganita
Founded in 1991, Tenaganita is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year! The organisation strives to protect everyone against exploitation, discrimination, slavery, and human trafficking. There are two shelters in KL for survivors of slavery and human trafficking. Tenaganita works to address issues of exploitation, discrimination, unequal treatment, and violence against women, refugees and migrant workers. For donations, please click here to go to their website.
Women’s Aid Organisation
The WAO is a non-religious NGO based in Malaysia, committed to confronting and ending violence against women. WAO provides shelter and counselling for women nationwide and also advocates for women’s rights as human rights. If you want to donate, please view their website here.
Refugees
Tanma Federation
Tanma means ‘strong’ in Burmese. It is a federation of three refugee women’s groups: the Chin Women organisation (CWO), Kaoprise and Mang Tha. Together they work to develop projects and activities through fair trade, empowerment and livelihood programs. They also run a school for the refugee’s children and are in need of volunteer teachers.
Would you like to help? Please call 016 958 7782 or e-mail them here. They also have an amazing collection of items to purchase. By making the decision to buy from Tanma you are helping to empower the ladies of Tanma.
The Alliance of Chin Refugees
ACR is a Chin Refugee Community centre, assisting asylum-seekers and refugees living in Malaysia. The main services the Centre provides are education for children, legal assistance and healthcare. They are continuously in need of donations in cash and goods (medicines, vitamins, milk powder and infant cereal). You can email them here to find out how to help them.
General humanitarian charities
The Malaysian Social Research Institute
The Malaysian Social Research Institute (MSRI) is an NGO established in 1959. Its SAHABAT Support Centre (SSC) provides services to urban refugees like Orang Asli, refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia. They have a school and educational programmes, they provide health care and support families in meeting the basic needs. Financial support is needed to purchase food and/or food vouchers to families in dire need. For donations, please view their website here.
Yayasan Chow Kit
YCK is a 24-hour crisis and drop-in centre, providing meals, activities, therapy, case management and education programmes for the at risk children of Chow Kit. They also have a safe house for the most at risk cases, to keep vulnerable and abused children protected and away from their abusers. They always welcome volunteers and other help – if you’d like to donate, have a look here on their website.
Living Hope
Living Hope is a registered NGO that provides help and hope to the underprivileged children living in Malaysia and globally. They aim to feed and educate the poorest of the poor children and focus on the less-publicised, independently run homes and orphanages who need assistance in cash, food or other provisions. For more info about donations, you can email them here.
FREHA
The objective of the Selangor & Wilayah Persekutuan Family Health Association is to enable access to sexual reproductive health services and rights to the marginalised and poor community. FREHA is the first family planning association (FPA) to be founded in Malaysia.
Would you like to help them by donating? Please view their website page here.
We are not familiar with all of the work of all the charities and NGOs. For further into, please contact the organisations directly!
