Makna loans in the offing

NST: Families of cancer patients will soon be able to apply to the National Cancer Council (Makna) for loans to start small businesses.
The council is working with several organisations to provide interest-free loans of at least RM2,000 for families who have lost incomes when a member is afflicted by cancer.
Makna marketing manager Zawahir Abdullah said the facility would be launched this year.
"This is our latest project and we are still in talks with other organisations to provide such loans.
"We want to help these families generate a regular income by setting up a business," he said at the National Library today during a Makna talk on cancer.
Makna’s outreach programme facilitator Habiba Abd Rahman, a former nursing trainer with the Health Ministry, said cancer, currently the nation’s second killer disease, could affect one in four people in the next four years.
Habiba said the situation could worsen because of increasingly stressful lifestyles.
Makna was set up in 1993 as a non-profit organisation funded by public donations.