Newsroom Community Development

On 21 November 2008, the single mothers who participated in the "Small Enterprise Program" showcased their achievements at the "Entrepreneurship Walking Tall At Chow Kit", an event held in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week, organized by Yayasan Salam.

The Small Enterprise Program, piloted at Rumah Nur Salam, began in August 2007 with 8 single mothers from the Chow Kit area who were given between RM1,000 to RM5,000 each to start their business. The small businesses involved food, skin care products, accessories and others. The funds were provided by Hong Leong Foundation to Yayasan Salam who in turn gave out the funds as 'loans'. The repayment scheme consists of work hours spent by the ladies at the Yayasan Salam's centre. Each hour spent by the ladies is equal to RM20.

In her speech at the event, Ms Quek Sue Yian, director of the Hong Leong Foundation had this to say, "Together, you, me, the community, the charities, the government, we can all work to transform communities and lives. Empowerment is not something you can simply bestow on someone - no individual or foundation can do this. It is something that happens to a person when given a chance in life to flourish. It is something that only an individual can do for themselves and it makes me so, so happy to see women here in Nur Salam standing tall and taking these opportunities to empower themselves, to take pride in their work, to believe in themselves."

Rumah Nur Salam is a centre that is open 24 hours for children aged 18 and below. These children typically live in and around the Chow Kit area of Kuala Lumpur. Most times, these children are found loitering around all day. They come from poor families or are single-parent homes and they or their parents may be drug addicts or sex workers. (For more information on Rumah Nur Salam logo intohttp://www.chowkids.org/)

The program has since been extended to the other charity organizations like the Malaysian Aids Council for their car wash business; Rose Virginie Good Shepherd Centre, Ipoh for their bakery and catering business; Shelter Home for Children for their Single Mothers' Project; United Voice for their Employment Training Program and Persatuan Kanak-kanak Istimewa Kajang, Selangor for their nursery business.

"We hope that in the future, we can expand this project to more beneficiaries and to pull it tighter operationally - so that all our current partner-organisations and beneficiaries can all work together to a point where we can set up universal training, access to markets and be a large extended family where all members under the Hong Leong Foundation Small Enterprise Program are able to lean on each other, discuss ideas with one another, swap best practices, and support each other," Ms Quek added.

The Hong Leong Foundation's Small Enterprise Program seeks to promote self sufficiency, dignity, respect and hope for single mothers.

About Global Entrepreneurship Week
Kaufman, the Foundation for Entrepreneurship, based in United Kingdom, is an organization set up to connect entrepreneurs worldwide to generate new ideas on entrepreneurship whose target group are mainly youth.