Community-supermarket partnership to offer stranded workers sustenance

Christmas is around the corner, but not everyone in Macau will be blessed enough to rejoice this festive season, especially for hard-up non-resident workers who were dismissed and have been stranded in the city.
According to a source of the Times who wishes to remain anonymous, more than 100 non-resident workers were let go by the city’s casino operators these last two weeks, meaning that more people in Macau — most of them Filipinos — have been hit by the double whammy of unemployment and being stranded in the city, as there are no direct flights from Macau to their home countries.
One philanthropic family, couple Michael and Cynthia De Haas, have been providing a service for sacked Filipino migrant workers since February this year and they have decided to lend the community a helping hand again.
The couple has embarked on a partnership with a local supermarket group Supreme to run a donation campaign between December 15 and 21 which calls on existing Supreme customers to give away the digital points earned from their previous purchases and turn them into vouchers.
“We reached out to Supreme in November, and its owner came up with this creative way to raise funds,” Cynthia De Haas told the Times.
The couple will use the donated vouchers to purchase food and essential items, which will be delivered as hampers on December 23 and 24 to a total of 50 unemployed Filipinos whose lives have been upended by Covid-19.
“This year is a challenging year. We wish to make the end of this year a little less challenging for them,” she added.
The objective of the campaign is to raise public awareness about the suffering faced by stranded Filipino workers who have been laid off by local enterprises, hotels and casinos, and to show them that “society does really care about them,” explained Cynthia De Haas.
For several months, the couple have been giving alms to affected Filipino workers who were forced to take leave without pay. The relief started with daily meals before progressing to loan payments later.
As of end-October, Macau had 5,201 Filipinos working in the hotel and restaurant sector, down 15.2% year-on-year, from the 6,133 recorded in the same month last year. Staff Reporter