KUALA LUMPUR: YTL Communications' YES today announced plans under the Government's Jaringan Prihatin initiative that will equip B40 families and individuals with free phones and free data for a whole year.

The company said there are two YES Prihatin plans for rakyat B40: YES Prihatin Learn-From-Home Families and YES Prihatin Learn-From-Home Individuals.

With just the Jaringan Prihatin subsidy, both plans give subscribers a free smartphone, free data and free access to YTL Foundation's Learn-From-Home content, all for one year with no deposit, contract or payments needed. Subscribers will also receive a RM50 Shopee voucher to shop for essentials. Both plans are now available on www.yes.my/kasiupB40 and the MyYes App.

The announcement from YES follows Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhiyiddin Yassin's launch of the Government's Jaringan Prihatin programme today, which offers a one year RM300 and RM180 subsidy to registered B40 families and individuals respectively, to help them pay for devices and data.

Announcing the details of YES Prihatin today, YTL Communications Sdn Bhd's managing director Datuk Yeoh Seok Hong said, "We welcome the opportunity to partner the Government to serve the underserved B40 community. Working with the Government we are able to multiply the impact of the Learn-From-Home free phone and data for B40 programme that we have been running with YTL Foundation since the beginning of the pandemic. Our aim is not just short-term relief, but to also create sustainable, long-term impact."

"Our 12-month YES Prihatin Learn-From-Home plans give families a free smartphone – the first step to being digitally connected. To this we added a full year's worth of free data, thereby allowing them to focus on learning, work and building their businesses. And we believe that this alone isn't enough. By giving their children full access to YTL Foundation's Learn-From-Home content, we also ensure students continue to remain digitally-connected to schools and learning. This is especially important as the nation once again moves to the online-based teaching and learning model from May 17, as announced by the Ministry of Education last week. This access gives parents the peace-of-mind knowing that their children will not be left behind," he added.

YES has been advocating the need to help the rakyat B40 since the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown started in March 2020, and started the ball rolling with YTL Foundation's Learn-From-Home programme, which offered free learning content and free data to all children in national schools, with free phones for children from B40 families. The programme was extended to all university undergraduates in July 2020, and to the 230,000 teacher members of the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) in April this year.

YTL Foundation's Learn from Home content includes 1,271 lessons across four core subjects - Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mathematics and Science - all mapped against the national curriculum for Primary 1 through to Form 5. All Learn From Home lessons are available on the YTL Foundation website and the FrogPlay Mobile App. The latter also includes more than 13,000 quizzes covering all core subjects, making learning and revising easily accessible to all students with a smartphone. Since the Learn-From-Home programmes launched in March 2020, YTL Foundation, in partnership with YES and FrogAsia, has distributed more than 18 million GB of free data, 450,000 free SIMs and 100,000 free phones to those who most need it.