KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (KPWKM) is working with the Ministry of Health (MOH) to obtain data of children who have lost their parents due to the pandemic and help them to continue with their lives.

Its Minister, Datuk Seri Rina Mohd Harun said KPWKM also works with community leaders and residents' associations to ensure that the children are looked after.

"This is one of the initiatives under the ministry... during the pandemic, we read and we see many children lost their parents due to COVID-19," she said adding that the children needed the strength to move on with their lives.

Earlier, Rina visited a single mother of eight children, Yusmah Yusof, 44, in Desa Pandan here, whose husband passed away due to COVID-19.

Yusmah received various assistance such as monthly financial aid to cover the expenses of her eight children aged between nine and 20 years, food basket assistance under the Bakul Prihatin Negara initiative, immediate monetary assistance worth RM300, a care package from Yayasan Kebajikan Negara, gadgets to facilitate her children's home learning as well as counselling services from the ministry.

Meanwhile, Rina said the ministry received a total of 371,082 applications for the 'Bakul Prihatin Negara' assistance with over 50,000 baskets distributed to 172,239 households.

She said a total of RM154,631,275 under the Social Welfare Department's Child Financial Assistance had been distributed within the first six months of this year, compared to last year's total allocation for the aid which was RM192,662,892.

-- BERNAMA