KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 — Responding to a plight of individuals whose income have been badly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, a group of young people got together to develop a mobile application to facilitate aid distribution among the needy.
According to Mohammad Hasif Afiq Jaafar, he and his nine friends started to develop the Bantu App last month.
He said they hoped it could be a platform to encourage Malaysians to help each other during these trying times as well as to provide wider access to assistance for affected individuals.
“Life is very challenging now and many have lost their jobs and source of income. What’s even sadder is when people resorted to suicide due to the mental stress that they are facing,” he told Bernama recently.
He said their target users are not only those who are in need but also individuals or non-governmental organisations who wish to channel assistance to those who are struggling to make ends meet.
Mohamad Hasif said the types of aid provided via the Bantu App are not limited to food or essential items as it can also provide aid in terms of accommodation, financial, medical as well as counselling services.
The software engineer said the application is equipped with user-friendly features including location detection and setting using the coordinate system as well as a selection of four languages namely Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mandarin and Tamil.
Since its launch on Aug 27, the application, he claimed had attracted more than 100 active users.
“Our target is in the first three months more people will download this application through Play Store and App Store for free and we hope it can reach to at least 10,000 downloads,” he said.
Source: BERNAMA News Agency