F&NHB Empowers Youths While Bringing Deepavali Cheer
In early October, volunteers from F&NHB helped to sell murukku made by youths from the Foundation. For every tub of murukku sold, the Group pledged a RM20 matching contribution towards the Foundation. We managed to sell 260 tubs of murukku, raising a total amount of RM10,400. Thank you to our employees!! With the amount raised, the Group purchased one industrial oven and two industrial cake mixers, for use in the Foundation’s culinary school.
On the morning of 26 October, F&NHB volunteers paid a visit to MySkills Foundation’s sprawling Youth Transformation and Entrepreneurship campus at Kalumpang, Hulu Selangor for a fun and educational visit as well as to have an early Deepavali celebration with the students and teachers.
During the visit, F&NHB volunteers were taken on a tour of its sprawling campus, which comprises boys’ and girls’ residences, a vegetable farm, a technical training centre and an indoor sports centre.
F&NHB also presented the oven and cake mixers to the Foundation, together with F&N beverages and products to support the daily needs of the resident students. F&NHB’s contribution will not only enable the students to hone their baking skills but will also help the Foundation generate income for its work and to cover the students’ daily needs.
Joining the visit was celebrity chef Kamaruddin Adnin, better popularly known as Chef Bob. Chef Bob held a cooking demonstration for the culinary students of the Foundation, teaching them his unique approach to making Malaysian favourites. In his usual lively style and jovial demeanour, he showed the students secrets to cooking tasty dishes using NONA ketupat, mango pudding and sauces.
“Deepavali is a festival of joy and togetherness. In this spirit, we are delighted to bring smiles to the students today by spending time with them. More importantly, we want to empower them to live independent lives by supporting the skills training and personal development work of the MySkills Foundation,” says Karen Tan, Director of Communications, Corporate Affairs & Sustainability at F&NHB.
Tan also expressed appreciation for the Foundation’s focus on upskilling at-risk youths and children by promoting positive values, building emotional intelligence, and equipping them with marketable skills and resiliency. With this holistic approach, MySkills Foundation aims to enable at-risk youths to be positive and productive members of society.
“We hope that our contribution this year will encourage them to be more adventurous and productive in creating more delicacies for sale in future. We are glad to be able to celebrate Deepavali with the students at MySkills Foundation today and we hope that our contributions today will further boost their opportunities in life. I am confident that with continued hard work and dedication, they will be able to achieve bigger and better opportunities,” she added.
F&NHB has an ongoing commitment to contribute five cartons of condensed milk and five cartons of evaporated milk every three months to MySkills Foundation since March 2022.
Pasupathi Sithamparam, Director of MySKills Foundation, expressed his appreciation to F&NHB for their regular contributions of milk products as well as supporting their students’ entrepreneurship journey by putting up their murukku products for sale. He also appreciated F&N’s contribution of baking equipment.
“I would like to extend my utmost appreciation to F&N, not only for their kind contribution but also for spending time to celebrate Deepavali with us today. I saw how inspired the children and youths were as they learnt new skills from a famous professional like Chef Bob. We are truly grateful for F&N’s gift of the oven and mixers as it will enable our culinary students to have a better learning experience as well as make more baked goods for sale, thus improving their entrepreneurship experience,” he said.