NGO Sadaqah: Accessibility and Perceived Effect on Alleviating Student Situational Poverty during Covid-19 Lockdown in Malaysia

Purpose: This study aims to explore access to, and the effectiveness of NGOs Sadaqah in alleviating situational poverty experienced by higher education students during COVID-19 lockdowns in Malaysia. Sadaqah is considered instrumental to alleviating the social and intellectual challenges of society, but its efficacy in addressing emergencies and massive economic, medical, and social disruptions such as the ones caused byCOVID-19 pandemic is little studied. Design/methodology/approach: This research is a mixed design study that will use an online semi-structured survey to be administered through kobo toolbox to collect data from higher education students in Malaysia. Among others, the survey will contain items on respondents’ socio-economic status before and during the pandemic, the effect of the pandemic on the wellbeing and socio-economic conditions, their access to sadaqah, and the types that accessed before and during the pandemic, and the observed socio-economic impacts of the sadaqah that they received. Follow up semi-structured interviews will be conducted with a theoretically determined sample size to be selected from the respondents who indicate availability through the survey. The interviews will be used to further explore respondents’ understanding of situational poverty, as well as their lived challenges before and during the pandemic. The support mechanisms including sadaqah that they assessed during the pandemic to address their socio-economic challenges will be broadly discussed, with their perceived impacts of each also to be explored. The discussions will explore what could be done to enhance the effectiveness of NGO sadaqah to carter to emergencies. Thematic analysis will be used to analyse the semi-structured interviews and Stata software for the survey data. Findings: The result will be used to propose policies and recommendations on how NGO sadaqah can be used and strengthened as a mechanism for alleviating situation poverty and related challenges during emergencies.