Guided by the retailer’s #KitakanJiran spirit, Lotuss Stores (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (Lotus’s Malaysia), together with its long-time partner – Unilever Malaysia continues to promote health and wellbeing through empowering more school children through Lotus’s Malaysia’s signature SMART Consumer programme and Unilever Malaysia’s signature handwashing activity.

By working together, Lotus's Malaysia and Unilever Malaysia will have a positive impact on more than 1,000 students from three of Lotus's Malaysia's adopted schools under the School Adoption Programme. The schools are Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Pandan Jaya, SK Taman Dato Harun 2, and SK Seksyen 17.

Led by Lotus’s Malaysia’s Community Engagement Leads, the Lotus’s SMART Consumers programme was designed to equip students with lifelong knowledge on how to make SMART and healthier choices in order to cope with inflation. During the session, students also participated in hands-on activities, such as identifying their needs and wants, creating a budget and shopping for groceries with a limited budget, and how to use the Lotus's Scan & Shop Application to manage their budget better.

“Together with our partner, Unilever Malaysia, this collaboration is to reaffirm our commitment to instill healthy and sustainable lifestyles among the school going children. According to a study conducted by the Ministry of Health Malaysia, proper handwashing can prevent 80% of disease infections such as influenza, hand, foot, and mouth disease, conjunctivitis and many more. The importance of best handwashing practices has been increasingly important, as children are at a higher risk of contracting infectious diseases,” said Hanim Hamdan, Head of Communications and Sustainability of Lotus’s Malaysia.”

Therefore, participating students also had the opportunity to learn about handwashing best practices from Lifebuoy, Unilever Malaysia. This was an important component of the programme, as handwashing is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of disease.

Hanim added, “As a community-spirited retailer, we believe our responsibility extends beyond shopping experiences. Our #KitakanJiran initiative aligns with our SMART values to make a positive impact on communities through affordable products, social well-being, and education. Our SMART Consumers programme, these students will have first-hand experience with our Community Engagement Leads to learn on managing and tracking their spending behavior better, to further help their parents mitigate the impact of inflation, saving their budget in a long run.”

Lotus's Malaysia has since 2016 collaborated with the PINTAR Foundation to develop and implement a variety of programs to enrich the lives of children in their 63 adopted schools across Peninsular Malaysia. Over the years, the #KitakanJiran Lotus's School Adoption programme has positively impacted more than 57,000 underprivileged students, providing them with access towards quality education, health and nutrition awareness, and greener living practices.

The retailer will continue to develop and improvise the programme, at the same time to encourage its employees to engage and support schoolchildren through good education, health and nutrition awareness and greener living through various activities.

Lotus's Malaysia is open to partnering with other organizations in the future to benefit more people, and they hope that consumers will see them not only as their preferred shopping destination for value, quality, and affordable goods, but also as a caring neighbor that supports the local community. For collaboration opportunities, please email Lotus’s Malaysia’s Sustainability Team at [email protected].