Kuala Lumpur: Tokio Marine Life Insurance Malaysia Bhd. (TMLM) continues to uphold one of the company's guiding principles to 'Look Beyond Profit when they donated some of the company’s repurposed laptops and CPUs, together with some urgently needed household items to several charitable organisations in Malaysia recently.

The company donated a total of 10 used laptops and 10 used CPUs which paired with 10 new monitors, together with RM5,000 worth of household items to Good Shepherd Service, GT Community Centre, Suriana Welfare Society Malaysia, Ti-Ratana Welfare Society Malaysia, and Yayasan Sunbeams Homes.

While these NGOs run different types of programmes - for example GT Community Centre operates a food bank and a free tuition centre for children, while Good Shepherd operates an interim shelter for women experiencing gender violence and hostels for school children, all of the homes focus on helping the needy.

Being non-governmental and non-profit organisations, these NGOs need support for the programmes they run, which include technological devices especially for children to learn and to equip themselves with increasingly necessary IT skills.

The need for such devices grew more urgent after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, as schools were closed and children were forced to learn from home. Now, even as schools have reopened, the emphasis on online learning has grown exponentially.

"Our aim is to provide devices to children from the NGOs to attend online courses, women from these homes to continue finding an income and to help those affected by COVID-19. TMLM itself is on a pursuit to go paperless by end-2020. This donation extends this digitalisation initiative beyond our internal practices, and encourages the beneficiary homes to stay up to date with technology," said TMLM Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Yoshiaki Okabe.

"Besides the laptops and desktops, some urgently needed items were simple household items such as dry food, face masks and sanitisers, to home appliances such as ceiling fans and wall fans. We were happy to be able to lend a little bit of helping hand in fulfilling their wish list," Okabe added.

Repurposing the laptops and CPUs for the use of these NGOs also gave these devices new life and saved them from going into landfills - an environmentally-friendly choice all around, and in line with TMLM's principle of respecting and preserving the environment. The company also installed necessary softwares to get the devices up and running upon the homes receiving them.

Good Shepherd received two ceiling fans and one wall fan worth RM1,000 for their Community Service Centre in Ipoh, along with four used laptops for their staff. Other than their residential-based programmes, Good Shepherd also has an extensive community-based programme to advocate reducing poverty and shelter victims of gender-based violence.

"We are very appreciative of this kind gesture of TMLM as it will enable a more comfortable environment for the children who drop-in at the Centre after school to seek learning support.  The laptops will also facilitate the operations of our team members involved in outreach work as they are constantly on the move," said, Chin Poh Choo, the Executive Director of Good Shepherd Services.

GT Community Centre is another beneficiary home that received four used CPUs  to be used by the children at its Free Tuition Centre, together with household items worth RM1,000, TMLM's generosity is a "meaningful gesture" to this target group - the poor community around Klang and Kapar that we are trying to help, said its spokesperson, Mr. Roy Tan.

"Without the proper devices, it is very hard for us to be able to help these children keep up with technology. So thoughtful contributions like this mean a lot to us," Roy added.

Suriana Welfare Society Malaysia, which runs a centre at Desa Mentari with 51 children aged 6-13. More than 60% of families at Desa Mentari do not have a computer at home for their children to conduct online schooling. During the Movement Control Order (MCO), these children missed out on their education. The two used laptops and two used CPUs with new monitors they received from TMLM is a great help for the NGO that is trying to help the children learn IT as part of their skills set.

"IT and digitalisation are an integral part of life now. To help the children keep up, we need to equip them with the IT know-how. Donations like this are timely and much needed, and we thank TMLM for thinking of us," said its spokesperson, Rachel Ho. Suriana Welfare Society Malaysia also received household items worth RM1,000 from TMLM which to be distributed to 21 underprivileged families at Desa Mentari.

As for Ti-Ratana Welfare Society Malaysia and Yayasan Sunbeams Home, both of which run homes for children, they each got two used laptops, two used CPUs and new monitors, together with household items worth RM1, 000.

"These laptops and desktops are very necessary for our children to attend online courses. We draw tremendous comfort from the contributions and support given by the community and companies like TMLM," said Ti-Ratana Welfare Society, Malaysia Founder, The Most Venerable Datuk K. Sri Dhammaratana.

"The pandemic has really brought home the fact that we are living in such unprecedented times. We truly cannot keep on doing what we do. We think of those less fortunate, and we are thankful that there are companies like TMLM who are like-minded. We hope our journey ahead will continue to be supported by people like them," said Ps. Victor Maniam, General Manager of Yayasan Sunbeams Home.

If you are interest in helping in anyway, please reach out to these NGOs:-

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