KUALA LUMPUR – How does one make a difference in the lives of ordinary people? Try asking the five teenagers who started the Feed Malaysia website.
Four 19-year-olds – Au Jun Wei, Karishma Menon, Leong Himn Yau and Natasha Lim – and Max Chew, 17, saw a need to centralise food bank information when many people turned to the #BenderaPutih campaign to seek help.
As a result, they launched Feed Selangor on July 11, and a few months later, on September 2, Feed Malaysia was made official.
Feed Malaysia has gone beyond providing information on food banks to cover potential jobs and counselling, too.
Information on jobs comes from its collaboration with One Step Closer, while Feed Malaysia also displays hotlines for those looking to better their mental well-being.
This is not the teens’ first social enterprise. Former schoolmates Au, Karishma, Leong and Lim previously produced 3,376 face shields for frontliners at four hospitals.
“The international school we attended encouraged us to pursue social enterprises, but much of our motivation came from seeing people resolving their problems with the help they got from our efforts,” said Karishma.
“Our motivation came from the satisfaction of helping, more than anything else.”
For Au, the original initiative was to create a food bank, which later became the Feed Malaysia website.
“We all thought a food bank would solve aid problems, but research showed us that a lot of companies and Good Samaritans are already funding food banks.
“But the information was scattered, and inaccessible to some. Hence, the idea of an information hub came to mind. Feed Selangor then became Feed Malaysia.”
Not an easy path
Creating a site like Feed Malaysia was not as straightforward as the team had hoped.
“In creating Feed Malaysia, Leong and Au mainly used the skills they learnt in secondary school, as well as the different features of the website-making platform. But it wasn’t enough,” said Karishma.
The quartet looked for another collaborator and found Chew, who was 16 at the time.
He had the idea of incorporating a food bank map that allowed users to type in their address and preferred travelling distance.
“When users click ‘enter’, a circle pops up that represents the radius. The map also showcases all the pins in the selected area. Each pin represents a food bank location. Information on opening and closing hours, and the types of food available is also displayed.”
He said he enjoyed working on the project due to the challenges and research involved, and was bolstered by a supportive team with whom challenges could be discussed and solutions found.
“At the moment, I am concentrating on my SATs as I’m applying to further my studies in data science or computer science, most probably in the United States.
“Feed Malaysia really caught my interest as I wanted to push myself to put my coding knowledge to use in a project as big as this.”
Other challenges
“When the website was done and launched, bigger problems emerged as people began calling for help to navigate the website and contact organisations. Our main purpose seemed lost, when we only wanted to direct people to organisations that could provide aid to them.”
Lim oversaw the responses from organisations and decided if they were to be listed.
The team has since grown beyond the five teens. It now includes another nine tasked with social media outreach, translations, state liaison, and programming.
For now, the website runs mostly on its own, with the team coming in only when help is needed to sort out complications related to sources of information. – The Vibes, October 11, 2021
