GROWING up in the small town of Pusing in rural Perak, Sunway Group chairman Tan Sri Dr Jeffrey Cheah had many childhood friends whose futures were bleak because they could not afford schooling.
“The poverty and hardships that surrounded me formed my conviction that education provides the best route out of poverty and misery,” says Cheah in an interview with The Edge.
Those early impressions prompted him to set up the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation (JCF), which aims “to create a better, sustainable future for all Malaysians, particularly through quality education and research”.
The foundation completed its first decade last year, having awarded close to RM540 million in scholarships and grants.