Generasi Gemilang, Malaysia

While Malaysia as a whole has made great economic progress over the past 30 years, significant pockets of families with young children continue to live in poverty. Among these families, only half of children ages 5-6 attend preschool. Half of these children are either severely malnourished (22%) or suffer from obesity (23%)10.

Before the partnership with The Human Safety Net was started in 2018, Generasi Gemilang already ran a programme focusing on the neediest families. These families receive individual support to help provide financial stability, get children into school and improve overall family wellbeing. The partnership helped expand the family support programme (FamsUP) to include group workshops for these families focusing on parenting skills and responsive caregiving (FamTIME), as well as workshops offering similar content to the entire community (FamTIME BERSAMA). Our data shows that thanks to these interventions, the number of families affected by these initiatives increased more than tenfold.

FamTime workshops cover eight 3-hour sessions spread out over two months and equip families with parenting skills so that they can improve their parent-child relationships and family wellbeing. Topics covered include communicating with love, conflict resolution, emotional management and financial literacy. As a result, 50% of parents reported reduced stress and increased wellbeing.