MWKA is honoured to be one of twenty five firms in Asia recognised by Asian Legal Business in their annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) List for 2016.
The highlights of our CSR efforts for 2015 include the following:
“Help Nepal. RM1 million in 10 days.” fundraising campaign in aid of St John Ambulance Malaysia’s SJAM-Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund.
On 25 April 2015, Nepal was struck by a powerful earthquake of 7.8 on the Richter scale, causing extensive damage to buildings, and triggering avalanches in the mountain areas which swept away entire villages.
About 7,000 people lost their lives, more than 14,000 were injured and 2 million were displaced.
Our consultant, Dato’ Mah Weng Kwai, was the Organising Chairman of the Relief Fund for SJAM, and subsequently lead the team to Nepal for disaster relief effort in May 2015.
MWKA ran a fundraising campaign appealing to our clients, friends and family to support this humanitarian cause.
The campaign successfully raised approximately RM450,000 for the Relief Fund. SJAM was able to secure and deliver essential supplies to the injured and homeless, and further purchased a 4WD vehicle for urgent transportation needs for the Nepal Eye Hospital in the month of May, 2015.
In the following months, the Relief Fund disbursed monetary support for the building of 30 monsoon shelters for the homeless as monsoon season approached, as well as continued funding the delivery of supplies by new SJAM teams volunteering in Nepal.
A clip of the local Nepal news coverage on Dato’ Mah’s hands-on participation and contribution can be accessed here.
NKF-IJM Organ Donation Campaign 2015
National Kidney Foundation of Malaysia (NKF) organized the NKF-IJM Organ Donation Campaign 2015 from in the month of November and December 2015 under the theme ‘Be an Organ Donor, All it Costs is a Little Love’. This campaign was in collaboration with IJM Corporation Berhad (IJM).
In this campaign, NKF is creating awareness by distributing informational packs containing organ donation educational materials at 6 toll plazas with a target distribution of 60,000.
According to recent statistics provided by NKF, there are more than 19,718 kidney failure patients still waiting for kidney transplantation whereas more than 31,000 patients are commencing dialysis treatment. In view of the number of organ pledgers in Malaysia, it is only about 1% of the population.
Therefore, the Public Education Department under NKF is determined to support National Transplant Resources Centre (NTRC) of Ministry of Health (MOH) to double their effort in promoting kidney transplantation.
We certainly hope this awareness drive will see a surge in pledges for organ donation before the end of the year.
MWKA staff volunteered to assist with the insertion of educational materials into individual packs over two weekends. Our enthusiastic volunteers completed assembling an estimated 10,000 packs for the campaign.
“Conference on Strengthening Birth Registration in Sabah” organized by PACOS Trust
The primary aim of the conference was to develop a transparent and effective network of organizations working to improve birth registration systems and provide an opportunity for focused dialogue between key civil society actors, academics, and government. The principal focus was on developments in Sabah with further discussion on initiatives in Peninsular Malaysia and the South-east Asia region.
Birth registration provides the first legal recognition of a child’s existence and also paves the way for the attainment of other fundamental rights integral to a child’s development and well-being. However, in Sabah, the lack of birth registration continues to remain an issue that affects several communities including the Indigenous communities (Orang Asal), children of Filipino and Indonesian descent, and the Bajau Laut communities.
At the end of 2014, 42 member States of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), including Malaysia, adopted a Ministerial Declaration, “Get Everyone in the Picture”, with the goal of achieving universal Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems by 2024.
To advocate for improved CRVS systems, PACOS Trust have initiated and led community outreach activities, a birth registration campaign mainly targeting marginalized communities in 2015. They have further organized the conference to create a platform for the sharing of good practices and initiatives that have been successfully employed to strengthen birth registration systems.
The implications for children who are unable to be registered at birth are vast and far-reaching; without legal proof of their identity, unregistered children can find it difficult to access their fundamental rights such as a right to a nationality, the right to access education and health, and the right to be free from all forms of exploitation.
This conference recognizes that there is potential for national and sub-regional cooperation to leverage existing activities and good practices, inspire new approaches and provide peer support for organizations that work in isolation trying to address the same issues.
The long-term impact begins with this first step of pooling expertise, and information and resource sharing. The key participants will play a vital role in building the will to improve the CRVS systems, providing advice and assistance to help persons without documentation resolve their predicament, and generating public awareness of the importance of addressing documentation issues.
After two days of active participation and focused dialogue sessions between key civil society activists, academics, legal experts and government representatives, a roadmap to improving the CRVS system is now being drafted. There will be further discussions on the completed draft in the coming months. Upon implementation, the lives of many more children will be changed.
Our Mr Raymond Mah was invited to participate in the conference given his interest and experience in this field together with many key civil society leaders, activists, academics and representatives from multiple government agencies to find a meaningful solution to a long-standing issue.
Moving Forward
We are privileged to be able to participate in the above events last year. As we look forward to 2016, we hope to redouble our CSR efforts to include more diverse causes with varied activities. We continue to be humbled by the many inspiring individuals we have met who are devoted to community service and hence, we seek to challenge ourselves next year to take our commitment to the next level.
To peruse the full list of the 25 firms and the editorial write up in the January 2016 issue of ALB Magazine, download the PDF here.
