- 1 year ago
Dive into Muslim Pro’s global campaign that sheds light on the plight of Palestinians especially children and displaced communities, through digital storytelling, faith-based education, and humanitarian action. Joining us in Awani Pagi is Nafees Khundker, CEO of Muslim Pro, to share more about this impactful initiative.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, good morning. You're watching Awani Pagi with me, Norsha Zwani Safusham.
00:12As Palestinians continue to endure hardship, displacement and the daily struggle for dignity,
00:19Muslim Pro has stepped forward with a global campaign focused on children and vulnerable communities
00:26through digital storytelling, faith-based education and humanitarian action.
00:31The initiative not only aims to raise awareness but also strengthen solidarity across the Muslim world.
00:39This campaign further reflects the evolving role of digital platforms like Muslim Pro in mobilizing community action
00:47while underscoring the shared responsibility of the global Muslim community toward humanitarian costs.
00:54And on Awani Pagi today, we are joined in the studio by Nafis Khan Ker, Chief Executive Officer of Muslim Pro,
01:02to share how this initiative seeks to uphold the rights of Palestinians.
01:07Assalamualaikum, good morning, how are you?
01:10Waalaikumsalam, I'm great, thank you and thanks for having me here.
01:14Thank you for being here as well, in Malaysia especially.
01:17First and foremost, we would like to understand why is Muslim Pro dedicating its 16th anniversary to Palestine?
01:26And what does this say about your brand's value?
01:31So, this is not the first time Muslim Pro is dedicating a month just for Palestine.
01:38For our last anniversary, we actually changed our whole app logo with the Palestinian flag colors to show our solidarity for Palestine.
01:49And the previous year when a lot of these conflicts restarted, we actually raised a lot of money for the Palestinian children as well.
02:02Because the relocation and there are a lot of indirect issues at the back also that's there that the children's need.
02:10And we partnered with Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, it's a US-based organization, but with on-the-ground presence in Palestine.
02:19And we raised more than half a million dollars for them there that year.
02:23So, this year for our anniversary, instead of celebrating or doing different other programs, we thought we will dedicate this totally for Palestine.
02:34And we named it Hope for Palestine.
02:37Okay.
02:38Where we want to raise a lot more awareness amongst the global community, not only Muslims.
02:46We want to go outside that so that our users share more than we are also raising funds.
02:57We want to, this is to show our solidarity with the people of Palestine, basically.
03:02I'm sure there's a lot of efforts by Muslim Pro and I'm sure most Malaysians here know Muslim Pro.
03:11We turn to Muslim Pro for our daily features like prayer reminders and also community engagement.
03:18But how does that really work into real support for Palestine?
03:23Yeah, sure.
03:24Sure.
03:25So, I think you touched upon a very interesting point here.
03:28So, Muslim Pro is global.
03:30We are the world's largest Muslim lifestyle app.
03:36And we don't just provide you the prayer times or just the Qibla direction, right?
03:41Yeah, yeah.
03:42We are actually building a global community based on faith, reflections,
03:52and also a common understanding or a common belief, I would say.
03:57So, we already have a community.
04:00People come to us not just for prayers.
04:03And we have a lot of other things that we bring to the table.
04:07Like the community one that you mentioned.
04:09We want a safe space in our app for Muslims all over the world to express themselves.
04:17With different types of content.
04:20You can communicate with each other.
04:22You can actually do a lot more things within our app.
04:26So, for Palestine, that's why we thought we would take this opportunity to bring all these people in
04:31to talk about one particular purpose.
04:34And it is not just about talking.
04:37One is, of course, speaking about it, sharing conversations, sharing in your social media through our app or outside the app.
04:45We are also letting people or giving people options to donate their money in this.
04:53And it's not that we take the money.
04:55We are giving direct options of buying food or it can be cooked food.
05:00It can be packed food.
05:01We again partnered with PCRA for part of that money will go there.
05:05We are partnering with other on-the-ground organizations where we can see the direct impact.
05:11So, sometimes a lot of people raise funds but you don't know where actually the money is going.
05:16So, we actually have physical proof of what's happening.
05:20We watch the videos and we know what goes on behind the scenes.
05:25And I'll give you one example later of that where we were concerned that a lot of the funds that we were raising,
05:33we didn't know whether, because we knew that the trucks couldn't go in with the food, right?
05:37Yeah, yeah.
05:38So, we were very worried whether our funds are being used properly or not.
05:41Yeah, sure.
05:42But interestingly enough, because we have a few teams on the ground with the partners we work,
05:49they actually managed to get it in.
05:51We actually saw during Ramadan, the Ramadan campaign we did,
05:54we saw videos of our teams cooking in Gaza and then feeding the people.
06:02And sometimes watching these videos of the food actually reaching the families and all are quite touching.
06:09Yes.
06:10But in our app, come back to your question.
06:13In our app, the other thing that our users can do now is just by using our app, you actually get stars and points.
06:21You know, people like these things when you're using an app, even games you see.
06:25So, we have that over there.
06:26And normally, our stars are used to purchase different things within our app, some premium services and all.
06:32Okay.
06:33But what we are going to do and commit to this time for the campaign is also to let our users' stars be converted into actual cash,
06:45which we will donate to Palestinian causes.
06:50So, let's say the more you use our app, the more features you use within, like, you get stars in our app if you come pray five times a day and then say that I have prayed five times a day.
07:03And then you watch a few different types of content, you read the Koran, you get stars.
07:10Okay.
07:11So, what we are going to do is if you now want to donate your stars, let's say you have 5,000 stars, you donate the 5,000 stars to this Palestinian campaign cause,
07:23we will actually convert stars, not stars to dollar to dollar, but we have a mechanism there, but we will actually donate cash.
07:33So, even without our users paying physical cash, you can actually help the Palestinian cause just by coming to Muslim Pro, using it and sharing your stories in our app and outside our app.
07:49It's like using your own deeds for your own rewards.
07:53Yes. Absolutely.
07:54And it will give back to the Palestinians.
07:56Absolutely.
07:57Right. Other than that, I'm sure your campaign will focus more on children and also displaced families in Palestine.
08:04But how does Muslim Pro also using digital storytelling, faith and also humanitarian work to highlight their struggles and maybe your team struggles as well to get in there to actually, you know, give out the help that they need?
08:23Sure. Thank you very much for asking the question because our content team will be very happy because we actually have a content platform, which is called Callbox, which is part of Muslim Pro.
08:37And interestingly, Callbox is available on Astro as well for subscription.
08:43Okay.
08:44So, it's a bit of a marketing thing and that's why I'm saying thanks for asking this question.
08:48But we actually have a content team.
08:50Okay.
08:51So, and we have a wide range of Islamic moderated content.
08:58And when I say Islamic moderated content, it doesn't mean that all the content is just about Muslim or Muslims and just about talking about religion.
09:07We have drama.
09:08We have drama.
09:09We have comedy.
09:10But it's more about portraying the Islamic culture, I would say, than history.
09:16We have documentaries on the Haram or we are just launching the Medina, which are amazing documentaries, one hour, one and a half hour documentaries.
09:28We have a lot of AI-based content.
09:30So, this time for the month of October, we are going to have a lot of Palestine-focused content over there where we will have interviews, documentaries and also hopefully some live coverage of also what we are actually doing, our aid programs, our teams working there.
09:57We should have some of those coming out in a series of programs in October.
10:04And what we are trying to do here is a lot of this content, we are going to open it up and then in our community feature, we will have conversations going.
10:12We will let people actually share it as well.
10:17Some of these content will also be free for everyone to watch and use.
10:23So, I think doing that will actually open it up a little bit more and people can share more, watch more and be more aware, I would say.
10:34Because if you really look at it, if you give me one more minute to answer this, this whole Palestinian thing, it's not just a cause anymore.
10:45I think it's a shared responsibility for everyone.
10:52And when I say everyone, I mean not only even Muslims.
10:55Because what's going on over there in terms of on the humanitarian grounds is just not something that people should just wait and not do anything.
11:07And we are trying to give people an option of talking about it, donating money because you can't change everything in one go.
11:16But if everyone talks about it, if everyone takes some responsibility, I think we can make a difference.
11:24It's more than just solidarity now too.
11:27But so far, what kind of response have you received so far, especially from the global Muslim community, also emphasizing on regions directly affected by the conflict?
11:42Okay.
11:43Okay.
11:44So, this campaign is only coming up.
11:46We've just started talking about it.
11:49But the response I would say would be very good.
11:53I'm speaking to you today about it.
11:55And a lot of others have also asked questions on this to us on what we are doing, how we can actually help.
12:02A lot of people have offered to help.
12:05Like we were here yesterday speaking to Prez.
12:07There were two organizations who came in to see us here yesterday showing their interest in working with us with their on the ground presence in Palestine.
12:21And how we can work together, how we can raise some more money for that.
12:25At the same time, to answer your question, we know that the response is very good because like we said, in two weeks, when we were trying to raise money for PCRF the last time, in two weeks, from our global user base, just from our global user base, we raised almost $500,000.
12:47And the first weekend, I think, was almost $150,000 or $200,000.
12:53The first weekend, we launched it on a Friday evening.
12:55By Sunday evening, we reached that amount.
12:58And these are coming from like small $5,000, $10,000, $50.
13:04It's not that someone gave out $5,000 or something.
13:06It wasn't like that.
13:08So, we believe that we have a strong support on this.
13:13And this time, we started communicating earlier that we are doing this in October.
13:18So, we believe the response will be even bigger with all your support and with all the other people.
13:26And especially for Malaysia, I think, I have to highlight, I think Malaysians have been extremely vocal about it.
13:33Yes.
13:34More than any other country.
13:39And it's been a really, really positive surprise for me where people have continuously been talking about.
13:47And whoever we spoke in the last two days here as well, it's been amazing how passionate they are about it.
13:54So, we expect a lot of, lot of activities around it in Malaysia in October.
14:03Yeah.
14:04It shows unity as well.
14:06Alright.
14:07We will have a short break.
14:08We will be back later to talk more on this campaign.
14:24Welcome back on Awani Pagi.
14:29Today, we are talking about initiative on digital humanitarian based on Muslim Pro's initiative that highlights campaign especially for the Palestinian community.
14:46And I understood there's a campaign for it.
14:48With me today is Nafis Kunker, Chief Executive Officer, CEO of Muslim Pro.
14:55Nafis, we talked a lot about the campaign.
14:58But one thing I would like to maybe ask you again.
15:02We know that Muslim Pro is an app which for Malaysians mostly, maybe we will look at it for our prayer time and Qibla direction as what we spoke just now.
15:14But I understood there's more to it actually, more engaging maybe initiative to actually enhance more about your app.
15:24So, why is it about?
15:26Sure.
15:27So, we are just not about prayer times for sure.
15:31The other thing or other biggest used feature, largest used feature is of course the Quran reading because we have the translation and transliteration and all.
15:43But we are now going past that where we feel people are using more of the apps to communicate with each other, to learn, to read, to do everything right.
15:56So, we focus a lot on bringing these communities together.
16:01Our Ummah Pro feature which is the community feature basically has people from all over the world commenting and asking and communicating with each other.
16:10But we also have a very strong content platform backing it.
16:17So, within the content we have our own content and we are now letting our users come in with user generated content as well.
16:25So, that they can communicate even more and they can share their stories even better.
16:33Because you don't always share it with the common social media networks but there are different types of moderation in different places.
16:42And we have our own almost like a closed group and like I was mentioning we have the whole thing is based on a common belief, a common faith right.
16:55So, you can actually communicate even better or connect better with some people.
17:00So, we have that.
17:01And to promote this even more and to help the global Muslim community.
17:08We just launched our global stories campaign or it was actually a contest for Muslim filmmakers all over the world.
17:19Where we had two categories which were short film which was about 15 minutes to 20 minute film.
17:26And we also had UGCs with about one and a half to two minute small videos.
17:35So, very wicked.
17:36So, we had actually many entries.
17:38We closed it I think end of August and we just announced the short film winners.
17:44But we also have the user generated content where the shorts we are giving people more time and we are letting our own users actually come in to judge as well.
17:56Okay.
17:57We have a panel of judges.
17:59We have short lists but we also want our users to get more involved.
18:04Okay.
18:05In watching all these and actually voting for them.
18:09So, actually I would like to request all our users to go in, watch these shorts and vote for it.
18:19Your vote counts.
18:21Our judging panel has their own scores and these votes together.
18:25We will actually go in and we will announce the winner based on that for this.
18:29Okay.
18:30So, the idea behind it again like you mentioned is to bring Muslims together.
18:35Bring all the people together.
18:37Someone who wants to learn more about Islam.
18:40Someone who wants to discuss, analyze more about Islam.
18:44They should come to our platform.
18:46Okay.
18:47And we are not only about prayer times or just the Quran.
18:52We are way more and everything is connected end of the day, right?
18:56Mm-hmm.
18:57Like we did a very small, very simple feature last year.
19:01Mm-hmm.
19:02We call it Ask Aideen.
19:04I love this name.
19:05Ask Aideen where it's an AI based search engine within our app.
19:10Which only gives you an answer from the Holy Quran or two Hadiths.
19:19Mm-hmm.
19:20And as you know that the Quran actually has everything about your life, the daily practices and all.
19:29So, any question you ask, as long as it's mentioned there in the Quran, we will come up with an AI based answer for it.
19:37Okay.
19:38So, instead of someone going in and searching in a browser and get answers from anywhere, verified or unverified sources,
19:48if you want to know anything in particular about the Quran or something, you just ask that and then it will give you the correct answer.
19:55Okay.
19:56You can ask a lot of things, even how many times it's mentioned, what does it say, what does that say, and you can keep asking questions.
20:03So, these are simple things that we do, but when someone needs something, anything you need about Islam, we want people to come in, come to our platform and then they can communicate with others all over the world.
20:16Okay.
20:17We are in 190 countries.
20:18All right.
20:19We have almost 60 languages in our app.
20:20Okay.
20:21So, you can communicate in all these different ways and communicate.
20:24So, it's all about connections.
20:26Yeah.
20:27Other than connections, this engaging initiative that is what most important for your recent campaign that you are going to launch in October, especially in the support for the Palestinians.
20:39So, this campaign that you are going to have in October seems to mark a shift from digital utility to global activism.
20:50Is this, I don't know if this is the correct question too, but do you see this as a new direction for Muslim Pro moving forward?
21:00I wouldn't say activism.
21:02It's about community or it's about what our users want or users need.
21:08So, we are there for everyone.
21:11We are very inclusive.
21:12Okay.
21:13It's not that we are an activist or anything.
21:16We're there for everyone.
21:17We work with relevant trends because if you're not relevant, this digital community is actually moving very fast, right?
21:26It's not like before people are not reading books or something.
21:30The community is moving fast.
21:32So, what they need, what they want to talk about, how they want it, it's all about that.
21:40I mean, the way we learned in school and the way our kids learn today are not the same.
21:50The way we do things, the way we read books and all, it's not the same.
21:55Times are changing for better or worse.
21:59No one can comment, but we have to move with that.
22:02We see that people are communicating more digitally.
22:05People are communicating through social networks.
22:09So, we are also moving that way because we want to keep this community intact.
22:16We want everyone to come to a platform which they can trust.
22:22That's extremely important.
22:25This trust, as long as we have it, then people will come in and at the same time, whatever they need, we are there to move with that.
22:35That's what we are there for.
22:36And our job is to actually stay true to our beliefs, at the same time provide what our users want.
22:50And we always try to keep doing that.
22:53Lastly, I know this sounds cliche.
22:57For every interview, they will definitely ask you this.
23:00But what are your hopes behind all of this other than this campaign?
23:04Maybe there's more initiatives that Muslim Pro is going to have soon?
23:11Sure.
23:12We want to keep evolving and doing new things.
23:17Like I said, this Palestinian campaign is not the first time we are doing something.
23:22But our main target is to make it much bigger.
23:29And our hope and prayers are actually for everything to stop and people so that people can have normal lives.
23:38That's what we all want.
23:40But at the same time, I think we can do a lot more for the global Muslim community.
23:49We are talking about Palestine.
23:51Let's say we are trying to help the Muslim creators creating content.
23:57We want to get into other features.
24:01We want to get you a global verified donations program so that the money that everyone spends, it goes into a proper cause and is managed well.
24:13For your day-to-day life, whatever you need, your e-commerce, finance, whatever you are doing, we want to be there and guide you where you can actually have a sort of a good life and practice your faith in every step.
24:30So that's how we look at what we want to do.
24:35We wish you all the best, especially for this campaign.
24:38Thank you again for being with us today.
24:40Nafis Khunker, Chief Executive Officer CEO of Muslim Pro.
24:45I think that's it for our Nipagi today.
24:49I'm Nooshah Zwanisafusham.
24:50See you soon.
25:00...
25:04tidak
25:07Tanya
25:09Tanya
25:10Tanya
25:11Tanya
25:13Tanya
25:15Tanya
25:17Tanya
25:18Tanya