JOHOR BARU: The efforts of medical frontliners battling the Covid-19 pandemic here have reached the attention of a nine-year-old boy living abroad.

       The child of Malaysian-German descent, who is now living with his parents in Saudi Arabia, said that he was moved by the videos of the Covid-19 situation here.

       “I was sad to see the situation getting worse in Malaysia. Although I am living far away, I wanted to do something to help,” said the boy, who wanted to be known only as Dominic.

       He started making pumpkin “kaya” paste and sold the product to his parents’ friends in Saudi Arabia to raise funds to help the frontliners in Malaysia.

       “I was selling them at RM35 a jar. But most of my customers paid more, some even paid RM100 as they wanted to support my initiative,” he added.

       Dominic said that it took him about one to two hours to make one batch of the paste that was enough for two jars.

       “I enjoy making the paste and I was able to make it a total of 10 times in two weeks.

       “Thanks to the generosity of my customers, who are mostly Malaysians living here, I was able to raise about RM4,000, which I gave to hospitals in Johor and Kedah,” Dominic said when contacted.

       Dominic, who used to travel to his mother’s home country around two to three times a year before the pandemic began last year, said that he misses Malaysia very much. “I miss going back to Malaysia and I hope to be able to visit again soon.

       “I really hope that Malaysia would get well soon,” he said.

       Johor Doctors Association founder and president Dr Ng Kim Fong said that a family member of the boy reached out to him to channel the donations.

       “I was really touched by the boy’s sweet and kind initiative,” he added.

       Dr Ng said that RM3,000 of the funds raised by Dominic was handed over to the association to buy medical equipment.

       “We bought two oxygen cylinders which were handed over to the Johor health director Datuk Dr Aman Rabu,” he said.

       Dr Ng added that the association also donated an ECG (electrocardiography) machine worth about RM5,000 and 200 coverall gowns worth about RM12,000 to the state health department.