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Malaysia's Hungry Banking on Charity to Get Through Lockdown

Zsombor Peter

   KUALA LUMPUR - On the 15th floor of a shabby, low-rent apartment block
   in north Kuala Lumpur, Justin Cheah stepped out of a rickety elevator
   with a bulging bag of groceries and headed for the unit flanked by a
   dusty shrine to the elephant-headed god Ganesh, the "remover of
   obstacles."

   Cheah is lending the deity a hand. The groceries, and a 10-kilogram bag
   of rice, are for one of the hundreds of new families the charity he
   runs, Kechara, has been helping to feed since the coronavirus pandemic
   sent Malaysia into a stifling lockdown in mid-March that has yet to be
   lifted in full.

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