EXERCISE 1 - Sarah Qistina Wright 0139173
Who is Kechara Soup Kitchen?
Kechara Soup Kitchen (KSK) is a non-for-profit and non-governmental organisation that has been serving non marginalized groups in Malaysia for over 17 years and has catered to the homeless, urban poor and Orang Asli populations (Kechara Soup Kitchen, n.d).
When was the NGO founded?
The NGO was founded in 2008 in hopes to provide basic needs such as food, medical services and welfare aid to these groups in order to give them a better life. (Same source as Question 1)
What programmes do they have?
Kechara Soup Kitchen carries out 3 programmes - food bank, empowerment and soup kitchen. Each of these programmes have different purposes to help those in need. (Same source as Question 1)
What is the purpose of the food bank programme?
The purpose of the programme is to provide food security for the underprivileged community, through dry and surplus food assistance. So far, the programme has served 197,000 people including 9,604 families and has distributed a total of 580,180 kg worth of food.
What is the purpose of the empowerment programme and what has it achieved?
The programme is to promote self reliance and financial independence which is carried out through education and skill-sets programmes. They have managed to train 33 trainees and has produced 27,000 products that generated an income of RM 659,244.
What is the purpose of the soup kitchen and what has it accomplished?
The soup kitchen aims to reduce homelessness and poverty by giving cooked food and community care to the people. As of today, they have registered 12,038 homeless people and has successfully distributed 104,444 meals. (Same source as Question 1)
What is the difference between the food bank and the soup kitchen?
The soup kitchen provides basic sustenance, medical care and welfare aid to those who are homeless or in need while the food bank functions by providing companies and individuals a platform to contribute surplus produce, cooked food and dry provisions directly to the poor.
Where does KSK operate?
Kechara Soup Kitchen operates in multiple states such as Selangor, Penang, Perak, Pahang and Melaka.
Who is the founder of Kechara Soup Kitchen?
The founder of Kechara is His Eminence Tsem Tulku Rinpoche (Tsem Rinpoche, 2018).
Why did the founder decide to start KSK?
When Tsem Tulku Rinpoche was a teenager in the United States of America,he had experienced hunger and coldness that eventually motivated him to set up KSK to lessen the hardship of the less fortunate living in the streets of Kuala Lumpur. (Tsem Rinpoche, 2018)
What impact has the NGO done to society?
Kechara Soup Kitchen has helped those in marginalised communities improve their quality of life by providing food, basic medical care, rehoming, and welfare aid. When they started in Kuala Lumpur in 2006, they found more than 1300 hungry people and with many years of hard work and dedication, the numbers have now decreased to 500-600 people (Wiki Impact, 2020).
Who is the current president of Kechara Soup Kitchen?
The current president is Henry Ooi Seong Huat who oversees all aspects of KSK such as daily operational matters, logistics, direction of its growth to its fundraising campaigns including KSK’s relationships with government agencies and sponsors.
Who are the key members of KSK?
Besides the president, some of the few key members are Phng Li Kim as the Vice President, Chuah Su Ming as the Secretary, Ooi Beng Kooi as the Treasurer, and Justin Cheah Kok Leong as the Marketing Director. (Same source as Question 1)
Who has partnered up with KSK?
Some of the more prominent partnerships with them were with YAM Tengku Datin Paduka Setia Zatasha binti Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, Lotus Stores (Formerly Tesco), and Sunway Hotels & Resorts.
What did they carry out with these partnerships?
The partnership with Tengku Zatashah started in 2016 when she announced the #zerofoodwastage and volunteered at KSK. After she started promoting zero food wastage and expressed her concern of the large amount of food wastage during Ramadan, many major hotels in the Klang Valley handed over excess food to KSK who would then reheat and pack food to distribute to the homeless (Murugesan, 2016).
Lotus Stores Sdn Bhd handed over 1500 kilograms of pantry staple foods, drinking water, and other necessities to KSK in honour of World Food Day which had benefited over 300 underprivileged families across Malaysia (Lotus, 2023)
Sunway Hotels & Resorts decided to collaborate with KSK to launch the Sunway #zerofoodwastage initiative in May 2017. By acknowledging the immense food waste in the country which only worsens during Ramadan, the Sunway Resort Hotel collected 5878.5 kilograms of surplus food from their buffets to distribute to more than 23,500 beneficiaries in the Klang Valley (Sunway Stories, 2022).
Who is the biggest monetary sponsors for KSK?
Some of the biggest monetary sponsors for KSK in 2024 was the Hilton Global Foundation, OSK Foundation, Shopee, StoneX, SUNWAY, and The Global Foodbanking Network.
What is KSK’s tagline?
The tagline for KSK is ‘Hunger Knows No Bounds’. This is used as they believe that hunger is not restricted to a certain demographic but can impact those from different races and religions. (Same source as Question 9)
What campaigns have they conducted in the past 2 years?
KSK has conducted several campaigns one of which is Food Mission 2024 with KSK Society that was carried out on 1st December 2024 till 31st December 2024. The campaign was to help Orang Asli families recover from floods that have affected 3621 families in 44 Orang Asli villages nationwide.
They also have an ongoing campaign - Feed a Family. This campaign focuses on providing food security to families in need especially those that were affected by the pandemic and slipped into poverty.
What is KSK's mission and vision?
KSK mission is to reduce homelessness, reduce food wastage, stop poverty leading to a nation of cleaner environment and better lives for the less privileged community.
Meanwhile, their vision is for a nation where no one is deprived of basic necessities due to poverty.
What is KSK’s motto?
The motto for KSK is ‘Alleviating poverty together, one life, one family, and one community at a time.’
Which specific SDGs best reflects the NGO’s mission?
The ‘No Poverty’ (SDG 1) and ‘Zero Hunger’ (SDG 2) best reflects their mission. KSK strives to help those that are in poverty stricken households by reaching out and helping these families using various ways as they believe that no one regardless of their background should live in poverty.
Besides, they also advocate for zero waste and have made significant progress and collaborated with various companies to reduce food waste. With the help from these companies, they have successfully distributed leftover produce and food from supermarkets and hotels to those in need.
What makes the NGO stand out compared to others? (S)
KSK stands out from other NGOs because they take on a data driven approach to tackle on homelessness. They would register individuals to keep track of them on a long term basis while also filtering out those that don’t really need their resources (Hope, 2018).
What limitations affect their performance? (W)
After Covid 19, the amount of donations dropped significantly. People that used to donate RM3 would only give 50 cents which affects their performance to maintain the support for the community. This ultimately reduced the value of their food parcels as it went from RM200 to RM150 per parcel (Azmi, 2023).
What partnerships could Kechara Soup Kitchen use to expand their impact and reach more communities? (O)
A partnership that could help them reach more people is with the Resort World Genting collaboration in February 2025. They decided to collaborate with Kechara Soup Kitchen in hopes to give back to the community by distributing 190 food packs to those in need at Jalan Kancil in Pudu. This partnership highlights corporate focus on prioritizing meaningful community engagement (Arif Zikri, 2025).
What external challenges do they face? (T)
Funding is their greatest challenge because they rely 100% on public donations to serve the community. Therefore, their funding is often inconsistent. (Same source as Question 22)
Individual Reflection
Carrying out research on Kechara Soup Kitchen was not an easy task as I faced a few challenges on finding information as the official website for KSK did not provide every answer I needed for this report. However, I managed to discover more information about the NGO through other methods by browsing through credible websites. After completing this research, I have learned more about the sheer amount of effort put by Kechara Soup Kitchen to serving the underprivileged to give them a chance in life and ease their burden.
REFERENCES
Arif Zikri. (2025, February 28). Resorts World Genting, Kechara Soup Kitchen team up on sustainable plans to aid marginalised communities. Malay Mail ; Malay Mail. https://www.malaymail.com/news/life/2025/02/28/resorts-world-genting-kechara-soup-kitchen-team-up-on-sustainable-plans-to-aid-marginalised-communities/168302
AZMI, Z. (2023, October 16). From hunger to hope, a non-profit’s mission to fill empty bellies of the poor in KL | Sinar Daily. Sinar Daily. https://www.sinardaily.my/article/210780/malaysia/exclusives/from-hunger-to-hope-a-non-profits-mission-to-fill-empty-bellies-of-the-poor-in-kl
Hope, J. (2018, March 16). This M’sian NGO Uses Every Trick In The Book To Beat Homelessness—Including Web Apps. Vulcan Post. https://vulcanpost.com/635372/kechara-malaysia-ngo-homeless-charity/
Kechara Soup Kitchen. (n.d.). Kechara Soup Kitchen. https://kecharasoupkitchen.com/
Lotus’s Malaysia | Press Release - Lotus’s Malaysia with Kechara Soup Kitchen Collected 1,500 Kilogrammes of Food on World Food Day. (2023). Lotus’s Malaysia. https://corp.lotuss.com.my/corporate/press-release/LotussWFD
Murugesan, M. (2016, September 13). Don’t throw it away | New Straits Times. NST Online. https://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/09/172848/dont-throw-it-away
Sunway Stories. (2022). Waste Not, Want Not - Sunway Stories. Sunway Stories. https://stories.sunway.com.my/waste-not-want-not/
Team, W. I. (2020, November 2). Helping the Homeless with Kechara Soup Kitchen - Wiki Impact. Wiki Impact. https://www.wikiimpact.com/kechara-soup-kitchen-help-the-homeless-and-urban-poor/
Tsem Rinpoche. (2018, November 12). KECHARA - Malaysia’s Soup Kitchen Turns 10! YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_PEyV2TjNs
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