How Incitement Digitalizes Fundraising Efforts To Advance Refugee Education

17 Feb How Incitement Digitalizes Fundraising Efforts To Advance Refugee Education

We speak with Incitement co-founder Zikry Kholil, who shares about the future of digital fundraising for grassroots initiatives around the globe.

University isn’t for everyone, but the choice to study should be. But for most refugees in Malaysia, the door to higher education is closed.

It is no secret that for about 24,000 refugee minors who are living in Malaysia, the lack of access to formal education is the biggest barrier to socioeconomic progress. According to the latest UNCHR figures, only 44% of refugee children aged 6-13 years are enrolled in primary education, while 16% of refugee children aged 14-17 years are enrolled in secondary education. Not to mention only 30% of school-aged children are enrolled in community learning centers.

Refugee schools are often severely underfunded and rely on volunteers and donations, and lack essential equipment and learning materials. They often only provide rudimentary education to help refugees survive, such as basic math, science and English language and religious studies, or follow the curriculum of local or international school systems.

Fugee School, Fugee’s flagship learning center, currently educates 200 refugee kids from over 10 countries. From kindergarten, primary to secondary classes (Grade 1 – Grade 9), students are taught a holistic program covering academic and life skills, from language and science subjects to mental health wellness. What happens after is donation-and-sponsorship-centered, which is more challenging than ever during the pandemic as many NGOs have been hitting a wall in fundraising efforts with the global economy tanking.

What’s shifting is the civil society sector working closely together to distribute aid and support vulnerable communities, fast and on all levels.

It takes two flints to make a fire

“What is very important for us at Incitement and our Small-Medium-Sized NGOs like Fugee are providing the visibility, the awareness, and the transparency to their development, their progress, their stories, and their growth while providing them with all the technology tools that we have built on the platform,” says Zikry Kholil, co-founder of the social business Incitement.

Since we joined the Incitement platform, we were provided with a variety of tools dealing in project management, crowdfunding and impact reporting, among others. Compared to fundraising websites like your popular crowdfunding platforms like SimplyGiving, Incitement has in place a comprehensive framework that connect nonprofits, grassroots projects and corporations in Malaysia.

One 2020 success story Kholil recounts is helping Taylor’s Community, a consolidated CSR platform for Taylor’s Education Group, to raise more than RM400,000 through Incitement, entailing in 4 corporate connections to incubate their social projects that support marginalized communities across Malaysia.

At Fugee, we initiated our collaboration in December to cover the costs of the GED programme for 10 refugee students. So far, we’ve raised RM23,900 through cooperative digital marketing and having the opportunity to have Facebook live conversations with Kholil and co to discuss the significance of the GED campaign rollout for refugee young adults looking to attend university or aspire to meaningful careers.

Simultaneously, we launched and secured nearly RM50,000 in a matter of weeks on Incitement to ride the wave of our increasingly digital era at Fugee School.

With the world going 100% digital in all respects, Incitement will focus on maximizing outcomes of impact reporting, accountability and funding, according to Kholil. On top of that, they will be launching a “mobile app this year and this will give access to beneficiaries to use the platform and be part of the project through their fingertips.”