Entrepreneur turned philanthropist Yeap Huey Huey’s is the head of the charity program named “Home Start”, which is providing monthly financial aids and food supply to over 30,000 underprivileged families in Myanmar. Her humanitarian career started in 2015 when she was first introduced to the issue of illegal Myanmar workers in Malaysia. Having visited a detention centre and seen the unhygienic detention cell crammed with over 30 people, she offered financial assistance to help them return home. Being easy targets for exploitation, illegal Myanmar workers are often reported to the authorities after a period of work so that the employers do not need to pay their salaries.

Since 2015, Ms. Yeap Huey Huey has personally rescued more than 70 illegal Myanmar workers from detention centres and sent them back to their families. During the back and forth travelling to Yangon, she was exposed to the root cause of the issue – lack of proper education and employment opportunities. Upon learning this, Ms. Yeap has consecutively opened 10 tyre shops in Yangon, creating working opportunities. She also instituted an automotive academy in 2017 to impart vehicle safety knowledge to the locals.

Having connected with more people in Myanmar, Ms. Yeap is deeply concerned with improving the quality of life. Under the leadership of Ms. Yeap, “Home Start” has funded and built 17 bridges and 95 wells for villages across the country. Roads have been paved to facilitate better connectivity for the villages. Ms. Yeap believes that children are the hope of future who will bring better changes to the society.

She has personally adopted 237 children, providing shelter, living expenses and education to them until they turn 18. In supporting education, her organization has helped to build new schools and refurbish old ones to provide better space for students.

Besides running charity, Ms. Yeap set out to formulate a long-term solution to help alleviate poverty, improve education and create employment opportunities for Myanmar people in 2017. She spearheaded an economic development master plan named “New Sittwe Myanmar City 2030”, which spans across 7,000 acres in Sittwe. The master plan was approved by Rakhine state cabinet members in June 2019.

Under the leadership of Ms. Yeap, “New Sittwe Myanmar City 2030” is designed to be a self-sustainability city with key components, such as international ports, light & heavy industries to support the business communities, business commercial center, affordable housings, schools, universities, hospitals, fire stations and other amenities. This development has attracted international investors from Malaysia, Singapore, France, Canada, USA and UK, stimulating the economic growth of Myanmar and transferring technology to the locals. The total development value of New Sittwe Myanmar City 2030 is estimated to be over USD38 billion and to be developed over a period of 15 years.

By initiating and leading “New Sittwe Myanmar City 2030”, Ms. Yeap targets to create more than 100,000 employment opportunities, facilitate technology transfer, support nation building and improve the quality of life for the people of Myanmar.