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Spurred by Mum’s Success
Fri, 21 Nov 08 - Kuala Lumpur: The success of its pilot project to help single mothers set up small businesses has prompted Yayasan Salam Malaysia to expand the programme to benefit more women.
Yayasan Salam Malaysia trustee Datuk Ahmad A. Talib said that the organisation would identify more single mothers for its Standing Tall Entrepreneurship in Chow Kit programme. The pilot project saw the involvement of eight single mothers from the Chow Kit area, who were each given loans of between RM1,000 and RM5,000 to start a business.
Among others, the women started a catering business and some sold facial products. The loans were provided by Hong Leong Foundation in collaboration with Yayasan Salam Malaysia.
One of the participants in the pilot project, Nor Aishah Minhat, 44, said she was grateful to the programme as it had helped her to be financially independent. "I was devastated when my husband left me. "Initially, I was so depressed that I refused to work or do anything. But later, I volunteered at a shelter for single mothers in Chow Kit and was subsequently introduced to the entrepreneurship programme."
Nor Aishah, a mother of three, used the loan from Hong Leong Foundation to restart her catering business which she abandoned when her husband left her. "I don't have to give them (the foundation) back the money. All I have to do is volunteer at the Nur Salam centre in Chow Kit until the loan is paid off," she said, adding that she hoped to open a restaurant. Under the programme, each hour of voluntary work is equivalent to RM20 repaid.
The entrepreneurship programme is based on a micro-credit programme created by Nobel Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh several years ago. Hong Leong Foundation director Quek Sue Yian said the foundation was also working with another four non-governmental organisations to provide loans to single mothers.
Extracted from The New Straits Times dated Mon, 24 Nov 08 (Page 12, National).