Zurich Malaysia and Zurich Insurance group’s charitable foundation, Z Zurich Foundation donated RM1 million to Epic Society to boost the Covid-19 Collective for Orang Asli initiative, a two-pronged relief and recovery programme for the Orang Asli communities.

The group stated that a portion of the fund has been allocated to supplement ongoing relief works, which focused on the distribution of essential food items, hygiene kits that also contain face masks and over-the-counter medicines.

It revealed the aid will be distributed to an approximately 4,000 families in Peninsular Malaysia until June this year.

On the other hand, the recovery stage which runs concurrently with the relief work until end-2020, will utilise a major portion of the funds to promote health and hygiene awareness and to improve access to education and economic opportunities.

“Taking into account the socio-economic challenges in the months ahead, we wanted to contribute to relieving the burden of low-income families who have lost their means of income, and daily-wage workers who cannot go to work,” said Zurich Malaysia country head Stephen Clark in a press release.

In regards to the collaboration, Epic Society president, John-Son Oei said to maximise the group’s contribution it has embarked on a mapping exercise with NGOs on the ground, which will help it to develop effective relief and recovery efforts.

He explained that this is in line with its long-terms goal of building community resilience to enable social mobility.