The effort was carried out in collaboration with Rotary Club of Bandar Sungai Petani (Rotary Club) and Yayasan Kelab-Kelab Rotary Malaysia to help affected communities to overcome difficulties brought about by Covid-19.
According to Rotary Club of Bandar Sungai Petani President Mr Gopaldhass Chitaya, the joint programme was aimed at ensuring that the needy students are not left out in their education journey during these challenging times.
“The laptops were allocated for students from families in the B40 group from SMK Dato Bijaya Setia, SJKT Bedong and SMK Bedong. The selection of students was done based on names submitted by class teachers to the schools’ student affairs department for verification with APDM (Aplikasi Pangkalan Data Murid). After verification, the names of the shortlisted students were sent to the schools’ principals. All the shortlisted students are fully deserving cases and aren’t able to attend online classes because their parents and family members have been badly hit financially by the current pandemic.
“We are grateful to OCBC Al-Amin through their Sungai Petani branch for their relentless support and commitment in assisting the community amidst the difficulties arising from the pandemic as many breadwinners from these families have lost their jobs. It is not easy for these parents as they do not have sufficient funds to ensure they are able to have the online resources ready for their children.
“We hope this gesture has brought some joy to the students so that they can have ease of access to their online lessons. We are pleased to have done our little part to help our community,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of OCBC Al-Amin, its Sungai Petani branch Senior Manager Ms Shermaine Cham Keng Fheng said the Bank continues to strive to be more involved in the localities in which it operates and to become even more engaged with the community, going beyond simply providing superior banking products and services to meeting the social needs of the people as well.
“The social and economic effect of the global pandemic is hard for many and so we wanted to reach out to support our own community, particularly those who have been deeply affected during these past few months. We are thankful to Rotary Club of Bandar Sungai Petani for being part of this programme. We hope the children will benefit greatly from accessing their online lessons more smoothly as education is key and no one should be deprived of it. We hope our little contribution will help them in this rather difficult time,” she said.
Thank you, OCBC Al-Amin for supporting education.
A total of 20 laptops (RM 25,980) were delivered in this joint project by OCBC Al-Amin and Rotary Club of Bandar Sungai Petani.