The Bigger Picha

Three women help to feed refugee families in Malaysia by putting food on your table.

- Vivian Chong / Zafigo

For over 14 years, Zaza was a hotel chef in Syria, his country of birth and where he had lived all his life. When the civil war began in 2011, his life was turned upside down. He fled to Malaysia with his family and they are now living here as refugees. For all his culinary skills, however, Zaza struggled to put food on the table as job opportunities for refugees are scarce – until he became a part of Picha Project, that is. The Kuala Lumpur-based social enterprise provides food delivery and catering services with an unusual premise: All the dishes are prepared by refugee families.

Just over a year old, Picha Project was founded by Suzanne Ling, Lee Swee Lin and Lim Yuet Kim, former college mates at UCSI University where each had pursued a different course –psychology, account and finance, and music, respectively. But they had one thing in common: all three were volunteer teachers at a refugee school in Cheras. In college, they had initiated awareness and fundraising events in aid of refugees, and created a platform called Hands of Hope Malaysia for their fellow students who wished to volunteer at the school.

As the trio came to understand the challenges and issues faced by these marginalised communities, they also realised a pressing issue. “Students were dropping out of school on a regular basis, we’re talking one to two students per week,” Suzanne reveals. “We went to their homes and spoke to their families, and found that they were struggling to pay the fees.” The school is funded by the refugees themselves, and teachers receive no pay. Students are charged RM50 per month. That, on top of having to pay for their house rental (between RM650-RM1,000 a month), does take its toll on the families’ already limited finances. The children have no choice but to stop schooling.

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