August: Greater Action

Greater Action is a grassroots non-profit based in Bandar Baru Ampang, Malaysia. It began in March 2020 as a small community response to the pandemic and has since grown into a support system for over 250 Afghan refugee families.

The organization focuses on empowering Afghan refugee women by offering education, language classes, and skill-based training that help them gain financial independence. Through initiatives like their upcycling sewing project, Greater Action helps refugee women gain financial independence while also promoting sustainability by keeping textiles out of landfills.

In addition to economic empowerment, Greater Action also supports families with access to healthcare, creative development, and community-building programs, helping refugees rebuild their lives with security and long-term stability.

Having partnered with Greater Action through a school club I lead, I thought it would be perfect to reach out to them again for my first project.

For this project, my focus was on supporting Greater Action through donations of no longer used clothing and textiles in good condition that might have otherwise ended up in landfills. These donations provide the refugee women with materials they can upcycle into new products and sell for income. 

On August 9, I collaborated with KL Drive (another student-led initiative I'm a part of that initiates charity drives) to host a full-day clothing drive. During this clothing drive, we were able to collect 13 full bags of donations to send to Greater Action. Additionally, we raised over 600RM (which KL Drive will be using for charity + future projects) selling cookies.

After the clothing drive, we delivered the bags of clothing to Greater Action and took a few photos on August 12. To finalize my support, I also shared several social media posts in hopes of inspiring others to take action and donate to Greater Action as well.