A well-rounded leader, Datuk Munirah Abdul Hamid is recognised for the strides she’s made in the corporate world as she is for her charity work. Besides ventures into various businesses with her husband throughout the years such as advanced robotics, bioinformatics and machine translation, she founded Pertiwi (styled as PERTIWI) Soup Kitchen.

The charitable arm of a former grass-roots organisation originally founded in the 1960s to promote girls’ education, by engaging with mothers in rural areas, Pertiwi Soup Kitchen also lobbies for gender equality. It began operations in 2010 to address the needs of the hard-core poor and homeless in Kuala Lumpur. Operating in inner-city neighbourhoods like Chow Kit, Kota Raya and Masjid India for four nights a week, Abdul Hamid is often personally present to distribute meals to the needy.

Besides meals, the NGO is also known to provide additional assistance, such as medical services and support to those seeking to lift themselves out of poverty. Abdul Hamid is hoping to engage with government stakeholders next, to get to the root of the problem of poverty and hopefully come up with a permanent solution to help the poor in the city.