DAP Sabah to look into rural poor – Jimmy Wong

Thursday November, 28, 2013 - 8:05 pm
 By Admin

KOTA KINABALU: The DAP will explore, study and identify critical programmes and projects which needs to be carried out in Sabah to uplift the well-being of the rural and poor villagers, said DAP Sabah chief Jimmy Wong.

“We will organise teams of members and volunteers to penetrate these remote villages to undertake projects such as micro-hydroelectric dams to provide electricity, gravity feed water systems, repair works on basic infrastructure such as roads and bridges as well as economic upliftment programmes via sustainable sources of income,” Jimmy (photo) said.

He promised this in his speech at the launch of the Impian Sabah campaign at DAP Headquarters in Petaling Jaya today.

He noted that Impian Malaysia Agents are required to take part as volunteers in these programmes to bring significant changes to the livelihood of Kadazan, Dusun, Murut, Bajau and other ethnic groups in Sabah who have been marginalised by the BN Government.

“The participation Impian Malaysia Agents in the campaign will make an immense difference to these people.

“We will be kicking off the first Impian Sabah project this weekend to build a Gravity-feed water system at Kampung Samparita Laut, Kota Marudu,” he announced.

Wong who is also MP for Kota Kinabalu went on to note that the Dusun village is a 3-hour drive from Kota Kinabalu including an hour off-road driving.

“After parking the car, the villagers will have to go across a thigh-level height river either by foot. During rainy days, water-level can rise up to waist-level. This is their daily routine to go in and out of the village.

Kg Samparita has a population of more than 200 people who have no access to piped water. These villagers rely on the main river for drinking, washing, and cleaning source. In fact they don’t even have toilets because the villagers said there isn’t any point in having toilets if there isn’t water. The average drinking water colour looks like Nescafe susu and during rainy days, with the colour turns “Nescafe kurang susu”, they will collect rainwater for drinking. With this project, we’ll be able to provide running water to the whole village,” he highlighted.

Wong explained that this project will involve 2 batches of volunteers from 30 Nov – 8 Dec and 12 Dec – 21 Dec the volunteers will be staying with the villagers, assisting to connect pipes, burying pipes, cement work, and all work related to build a gravity water feed system.

He added that Impian Malaysia Agents who can’t take part directly, can certainly take part in this thrust by attending our fund-raising dinners or donating online via https://dapmalaysia.org/donate. You may even run your own fund-raising activities, and our leaders will be more than happy to make available time to attend these functions.

For more information, please email impiansabah@gmail.com

“Impian Malaysia” or the “Malaysian Dream” is a movement started by DAP Parliamentary Leader Lim Kit Siang in May after the 13th General Election envisioning a plural society where all her citizens are united as one people, rising above their ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic differences as the common grounds binding them as one citizenship exceed the differences that divide them because of their ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural divisions.

The movement hopes to gather more Malaysian volunteers (including non-party members) to be “Impian Malaysia” Agents for our activities and programs to promote Malaysian identity and consciousness particularly among the young generation of Malaysians.

In September 2013, we had successfully launched the first pillar of the movement, “Impian Sarawak” and have completed several projects, involving nearly 40 “Impian Malaysia Agents”.

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