Breeze Malaysia brings water relief to Sabah villages

Breeze Malaysia collaborates with Global Peace Foundation for it’s Water Treatment Campaign to benefit 1,050 people with access to clean water

KUALA LUMPUR, 15 May 2017: As part of its commitment to sustainable living, Breeze Malaysia is bringing access to clean water to 1,050 villagers in Sabah, in partnership with Global Peace Foundation.

Breeze Malaysia through its Water Treatment Campaign held late last year successfully raised RM50,000 in contributions. For every Breeze laundry detergent purchased, RM1 was set aside.

All funds collected has been used to install new water filtration systems for Kampung Nalasaran, Kampung Padang, Nabawan and a school in the area – Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Sepulut. Over 23 water filtrations systems were installed within these locations which will benefit 385 residents in the villages and more than 700 students of SMK Sepulut.

Vincent Chong, Marketing Director, Unilever (Malaysia) Holdings Sdn Bhd said, “Water is a fundamental need for every human being and it is devastating to see that some people still do not have access to clean drinking water. At Breeze, we want to be able to assist the communities in getting safe, treated clean water which will in turn encourage good health and hygiene practices.

Moreover, the water treatment campaign also stems from the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, a global commitment made by the company to help 1 billion people to improve their health and well-being by 2020. On this note, we are also grateful to the customers of Breeze and the Global Peace Foundation who shares our vision in making sustainable living commonplace and work together in driving sustainable change for the community.”

Previously, the villagers relied on hilltop gravity-fed water for their daily usage. Water is collected from the hilltop using self-made pipes and on rainy days or wet season, the water quality gets worse as it gets polluted with dirt and other debris flowing through the pipes.

Meanwhile for SMK Sepulut, the school which has dormitories for its students had to source for water from a nearby river. Due to the lack of treated pipe water, the students had to purchase drinking water from a vending machine at their canteen.

In line with the installation, Breeze and Global Peace Foundation also provided training for the communities on the usage and maintenance of the water filter.

“For people in these communities, they had to make do with the water source they can access to, regardless of quality and safety of the water. Often the women had to carry heavy buckets of water for daily usage. Drinking untreated water carries a lot of health risks such as water-borne diseases like cholera or diarrhea. Thus providing the water filtration system will definitely improve their health and social well-being,” said Dr Teh Su Thye, Chief Executive Officer of Global Peace Foundation.

“The water filtration system is simple in design and easy to use. It requires no electricity and comes with an ultrafiltration membrane cartridge to remove 99 per cent of particles, bacteria and other microbial debris to allow clean, purified water of between 70,000 -100,000 litres to last for several years,” added Dr Teh.

“We have been struggling for years over the issue of clean water. Now that we have the new water filter, we don’t have to worry about this anymore. Thanks to Breeze Malaysia and Global Peace Foundation for their assistance,” said Sidin Andin from Kampung Padang.

For more information, log on to Breeze Malaysia’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/breezemalaysia.