Dit Geng Yow
Monash University
Gitanjali Bedi
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The world is currently in the midst of a global refugee crisis. There are more than 65 million refugees around the world without a safe place to stay due to war and disaster. Although United Nation had put in enormous effort to solve the crisis, developing country like Malaysia does not manage to sign on to the convention on refugees and migrant right, as the country claimed that they are unprepared and not ready to execute necessary duty pertaining to refugee issues. Consequently, there are no refugee camp and programme provided in Malaysia and the right for refugees to get access to employment, education and healthcare services are highly deprived as well.
When trying to solve the prickly problem, Picha Project seeks to become the leader in the sustainable catering business. “When we first started with The Picha Project, we began with the mindset that we are going to be making a real difference and changing the world.” Suzanne said. By combining the existing cooking skills of refugees with catering service, Picha Project created a platform for refugees to serve their traditional food to the local community. This, in turn, created a job opportunity for the refugees to empower their life.
The company's name, "Picha", is drawn from the first refugee family who joined the catering service. It was the youngest son's name "Pita" (same pronunciation) and the idea is to commemorate the pioneer of “Picha Project”. The journey “from zero to hero” was no easy task. Without patience and support from Pita’s family, the company would not be where it is today.
Every successful business has its own story. The story of The Picha Project started from years ago, where the current founders were involved in volunteer education in a refugee learning centre. As time goes by, the founders realize there is a drastic change in the student’s attendance from year to year, the class size was dropped from 20 to 18 and eventually to 5. A series of inquiries eventually lead the founders to understand the ruthless reality that refugees’ families are facing. Children are no longer available for class but forced to work on odd jobs to support their family because refugee families hardly capable of finding a decent job with decent pay to sustain their living in Malaysia. The founders were worried and feel obliged to help. Through a series of brainstorming and observation, they discovered a surprising fact that even the youngest children in their class have a solid grasp of cook skill and that’s it, they saw an opportunity in sustainable business.
Besides, Pita, another family that inspired the Picha Project is the Zaza family from Syria. Along the way, from nothing to something, the contribution of Zaza family is non-negligible. Back in Syria, Zaza was a professional chef before he became a refugee. Despite, this did not stop him from being passionate about cooking. With the help from Picha Project, Zaza was able to start a new life with his family in Malaysia. Soon, he becomes one of the famous chefs in Picha Project, the meals he cooked was always in great demand and devoted by the local community. However, things do not always turn out our way, Zaza was diagnosed with cancer not long after his life was back on track and this time not only wealth that he was losing but health. Despite Zaza's ill fortune, he did not give up on hope, even when he was bedridden, he was still spending time figuring methods to improve the food and the company. Although finally, Picha Project lost Zaza from sickness, it did not stop the company from trying to deliver an integrated sustainable catering service. Instead, Swee Lin mentioned that “It was this incident that gave us an insight into the magnitude of the problem we are working with.” They swore to hold on to Zaza’s passionate and spirit, continue to serve good food while making further positive and sustainable influence on more refugee families.
Until today, the Picha Project has served more than 70,000 meals to the local community with 11 refugee families on boards. In addition, the company has succeeded to provides 700,000 (ringgit) funding to the refugee families. Besides catering service, the company organized awareness event like “Picha Valentine’s Dinner” and “Celebrating Women” to highlight the indomitable resilience shown by the refugee families in facing their misfortune. Apart from that, the founders of Picha Project actively participate in giving speech through different media platform, such as Ted’s talk, graduation ceremony (UCSI) and radio station to spread the story of refugees (like Zaza), in hope of altering the false judgment and discrimination against refugees and promote the refugees issue Malaysia facing currently.
Last but not least, the founders also mentioned that they are now working hard trying to help more refugee families on board in order to lessen the issue above, however, their ultimate goal is to finds a sustainable solution to the problem.
The company’s unique business model works in a mutually complementary way. The catering service and the refugee families are both beneficial from the business itself. The families get their funding from the distribution of business profit while the company can be expanded with the increase of refugee family on board. Meanwhile, the hard work in building this sustainable business model has paid off as Picha Project is getting plenty of support from the local community. The company even achieved profitability in its second year of operation.
Malaysians, whose live in a multiracial society love eating varieties of food. This, in fact, become an excellent opportunity for the founders in establishing a linkage for the refugee community to connect with Malaysian and share their food. "Through this, we get to help the family to earn an income too." said Suzanne. The refugees gain a better lifestyle and their quality of life is improved after becoming a family of the Picha Project. Besides, awareness events and open house services, get refugees families an opportunity to bond with the local community and feels welcomed.
In term of environment, the company is environmentally responsible as they use eco-friendly food packaging that are biodegradable and recyclable.
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Kim Lim, Swee Lin and Suzanne Ling, Dit Geng Yow
The Picha Project is a young social enterprise based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, founded by three fresh graduates (Kim, Swee Lin and Suzanne) while they were still in bachelor studies two years ago. The Picha Project committed to provide sustainable food catering and delivery service for the local community. Unlike any other catering business, Picha Project is unique in a way that they specialized in foreign traditional cuisine from the chef’s homeland itself, by partnering with refugee families from Palestine, Myanmar and some middle east war-ravaged countries. The company strives to accomplish their mission not only in delivering tremendously delicious meal to the society but as well in promoting social awareness regarding marginalized groups in Malaysia to deal with the sustainable issue.