Sunday, May 4, 2008

Reporting from Kampung Merjuk for the Orang Asli

It was just less than two weeks ago Abby Loh, invited me to join Brother Khew to Sungai Merjuk for one day Mission Trip. We were asked to prepare a simple Children Program and prepare some tit bits. It was just a few hours trip but indeed a fruitful one.

All the brothers
Abby Loh and Brother Khew behind

Our journey into Kampung Merjuk, it is deserted up on the hill.

There were 13 to 15 kids with us and a couple. There were also these couple whose names are En Harith* and Pn Rosiana*. They are Christians and they opened their house to fellowship.


The collection of tins and stuff they sell to make a living.


Telling them the story of "The Parable of The Lost Sheep"


Most of them do not attend school because they do not have uniforms. The do not even know how to write their name. They don’t even have sufficient stationeries but just a box of random color pencils. They do not have clean clothes to wear too.


A good solid meal will be a blessing to them.

My final note to this matter, I found that most of these little ones do not attend schools and this matter has been going on in their generations. One of the reasons given was that they do not have school uniforms to go to school. My utmost thoughts were what happened to the budget that the Government should allocate for the Orang Asli in Malaysia??

Why are they the neglected ones? How can the generations of Orang Asli face breakthrough in future??



2 comments:

Illustrator said...

So sad to see the children without education, why without uniform they cannot go to school? Is it the school too far from the village? Perhaps the village head should initiate some dialogue with the nearest town council.

This matter is happening in other parts of Malaysia too.

Melissa Chua said...

I do not know where the school is, but it should be in the town because this village is in the jungle. Often we drive pass highways and there are lots of greens on our left and right, and actually these Orang Asli lives among the greens. That day when I went there, the village head is not there, but as I know they are very poor. The kids told me they eat rice and eggs everyday. I will follow-up on this matter with the regular volunteers. Thanks for your suggestions...good to hear from an experienced journalist.