The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic disrupted life across the world and especially in Malaysia for so many of us. The refugee communities have been hit one of the hardest in this pandemic and especially because of the lockdown that brought many small businesses to a standstill and left many daily wage labourers jobless. Having endured displacement from their native homes, the refugee communities now face the prospect of protracted devastation as the pandemic decimates their chance of survival due to a lack of adequate healthcare and food aid.

During the lockdown, PichaEats launched the Zaza Movement. It was named after one of the chef’s who wanted to cook and help feed the needy before he passed away. Since he passed away in 2017 as a refugee, PichaEats created a movement after him to raise funds, which enables and empowers refugee chefs to cook and deliver that cooked food to people in need. All the meals are cooked by Picha Chefs from Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan and more, who now call Kuala Lumpur home.

Along with the refugee communities, the Zaza movement has been strongly supporting our frontliners. As per PichaEats founder Kim Lim, “People were requesting us to cook for the front-liners, an abandoned old folks centre, police officers and refugee communities where the adults lost their job and are in hunger. So we re-activated The Zaza Movement where people can put in money and we will send meals to the people who need them the most.” 

Each meal will cost RM 12.72 to produce. That includes the cost of ingredients, packaging, logistics and income for the chefs who prepares the meals. With a target of RM50,000, PichaEats aims to produce 3931 meals. Thousand of such meals have been distributed to help the poor families, refugee communities, and frontliners in the past few months. Currently, PichaEats is distributing the meals to three hospitals, three refugee communities, one B40 community and one abandoned elderly centre.

Donations to this campaign will be used to support the refugee chefs to buy ingredients to prepare the meals, as well as for the logistics of the project.

Let’s start with just MYR 10 and help, empower, and enable our brothers and sisters across Malaysia. This campaign is a unique opportunity to not only help the needy but also to help many break free from depending on charity and get their own respectable source of income. 

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Whoever relieves a Muslim of a burden from the burdens of the world, Allah will relieve him of a burden from the burdens on the Day of Judgement. And whoever helps ease a difficulty in the world, Allah will grant him ease from a difficulty in the world and in the Hereafter. And whoever covers (the faults of) a Muslim, Allah will cover (his faults) for him in the world and the Hereafter. And Allah is engaged in helping the worshipper as long as the worshipper is engaged in helping his brother.” [Tirmidhi]