UTAR students benefit from Food Assistance Programme

UTAR together with the Department of Student Affairs of Sungai Long Campus (DSA) and Student Representative Council of Sungai Long Campus (SRC) put their hands together to collaborate with the Ministry of Higher Education to offer free meals to UTAR students for the extended duration of the conditional movement control order (CMCO).

There will be three meals provided per day for UTAR students who wish to stay within the campus vicinity during CMCO. The food assistance programme kick-started on 6 April 2020 and has been currently extended from 13 May 2020 till further notice. The programme aimed to ensure the students living on campus will not go hungry.

In order to compile the list of students who require the government food assistance consisting of breakfast, lunch and dinner, the DSA and SRC utilised Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2686792894751170) and other online channels as a mean to communicate with the students. Students who wanted the food assistance were required to state their meal selection daily to reduce food wastage. Currently, there are a total of 1,200 students who have registered for the government food assistance programme. Around 800 to 900 students are receiving their food every day.

SRC Sungai Long Campus Chairperson Leo Cheong Zhe expressed his gratitude to the Ministry of Higher Education and said, “Students who are still staying around the campus will not be in hunger once they are provided with the food assistance. We spent days and weeks for the arrangement of data, the structure of standard operation procedure (SOP) and also the distribution. A very careful SOP is needed because we are not only risking our lives but also affecting thousands of people. Fortunately, everything went smoothly. I hope that all these initiatives during the MCO will bring a direct impact on the student community as students are feeling helpless under this hardship.”

Food ready to be distributed