By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, Oct 3: Federation of Chinese Associations Kuching, Samarahan and Serian Divisions appeals to Premier of Sarawak Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg for a special grant to allow the Federation to continue its annual activities consisting mainly of charitable works.
Its president Dato Richard Wee said three years ago, the Federation formed a Disaster Relief Committee aims to provide financial and food assistance to all the fire, flood and all disasters affected area and victims in the shortest possible time.
He said when Covid-19 struck three years ago, the Federation immediately provided similar assistance to all the MCO (movement control order) lockdown affected areas.
“We have worked closely with our Welfare Ministry to complement the effort from the Ministry. All these operations were assisted by our members associations and our volunteers.
“We had also purchased a van to carry out the aid work. During the MCO period, we have provided more than 28,000 meals, personal protective equipment and medical equipment amounting to RM1.16 million to all frontline workers such as hospital, police and Bomba personnels.
“We have also responded to our government’s call to raise RM474,000 for the Covid-19 Pandemic Fund,” said Wee at the installation of Federation of Chinese Associations Sarawak cum Federation of Chinese Associations of Kuching, Samarahan and Serian held at a local hotel here this evening.
He said the Federation has also set up a Welfare Assistance Committee which works closely with the Welfare Ministry to assist victims who may have fallen within cracks of the government programmes.
“We are doing our level best to provide subsistence and medical assistances for those victims. This fund is estimated to be approximately around RM150,000 to RM200,000 annually,” said Wee.
For an association which has limited income, he said the Federation relies totally on the contribution from the member associations and the community to fund its annual sum of around RM1 million for the activities undertaken by the two committees.
“We intend to continue the work of our two main activities as we have received positive feedback from both the government ministries and agencies as well as from our community.
“We shall continue to carry out our fund raising exercise as part of our community work. Hence I would like to appeal to YAB (Abang Johari) to provide us with a special grant to supplement our fund raising effort and to assist us to carry out these meaningful aid work,” said Wee.
He was positive that with such assistance from the government, the Federation will be able to further improve their works towards the community.
“Lastly, we pledge that we Sarawak Federation of Chinese Associations will work closely with our Sarawak Government led by YAB Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Haji Abdul Rahman Zohari, that we shall not allow any bigotry rhetoric and extreme elements to undermine our achievements and legacy of Sarawak.
“We shall defend these values of ours, passionately and vehemently for a better Sarawak and for our future generations of all anak Sarawak,” said Wee. — DayakDaily
