28 November 2008. Here in Kepong. Almost the end of the year. Have been trying to collect my wits lately. Too many things to do, too little time to do them. I seem to be always lacking time to get rid of all these action items. For this blog, I have been trying to compose in my head what I want to say for the past week or so.
First, thought I would talk about boards of non-profit organizations. It occurred to me that in my rather long career in development work, something like 32 years of professional work, I have yet to see a board that is genuinely functioning according to its mandate. Most of the time, the leadership in these boards is captured by a few who come from some other civic groups and they need to be identified with another organization presumably with more prestige and influence in the community.
Most boards I have worked with is controlled by a strong leader, who tells you to write the minutes even if there has been no meeting held! Members of these boards are almost always busy to meet and if you happen to be in the technical secretariat being paid to support the board, you are in for a rough time. You will be mostly thinking for the board and carry out what you have thought of - with the blessings of the Board. All they do is stir coffee, a friend says. Well, that's for stirring committees, a favorite creation of most boards if they do not want to do the work themselves. These committees will surely get the blame if things do not work out as planned.
Anyway, things get done somehow and everyone is happy. But I really want to see a real Board.
The other matter I thought I would like to write about are those longhouses I saw in Sarawak in two field missions I had with Habitat colleagues and volunteers in such places called Serian, Kapit, Kalapa in Sarekei. It's one house right, but you find inside individual units with families inside. You can count the doors to know how many families live inside those longhouses (one word!). The number can range from 8 to 32 or even more. Actually, a long house is a village named usually after the Kampung chief.
Families in a longhouse share a common area where they can have social functions under one roof. This makes sense. You do not have to take cover in case of rain. Also, it is easier this way to mobilize all the families for a community meeting. But there is also another reason for the common area as told to me by an old woman in a long house. She says she is often requested to look after the children when all the adults go to work during daytime. It's easier for her to do so if the children are all in the common area; she can see all of them from her end of the long room. Makes sense!
The longhouse, as everything else in this dynamic world, has been undergoing changes. In the old days, they were made of bamboos, wood and palm leaves. I have seen longhouses made of cement; the common area has tiles, and the windows have jalousies. There are TV sets, radio, fridge, sofa and other modern amenities inside. I did not see modern beds. The old traditional mats are there on the floor of the one-room family unit. I tell you these are among the best mats I have seen in traditional places - such as those in the Pacific and a few Asian countries.
In some areas in Sarawak, the longhouses have become tourist attractions. Well, you never know how a traditional thing like a longhouse will be in a global village where we all live. They get transformed into something else - such as being a tourist attraction rather than just a traditional abode for a village of families.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
The Journey I Have Been (3)
11 Nov 2008. 6.24 a.m. Here in Johor Bahru, 5 hours from Kepong, Kuala Lumpur. I arrived here with the Habitat team two days ago. I am here with Tony and Patrick. Our mission: to look for partner organizations that could identify where we could start our program here to either repair or build houses with relatively disadvantaged households.
Our first contact was with Timothy Li, senior pastor of the Awe Charisma Tabernacle. We met him by the road and he promptly led us to an eatery and bought us lunch consisting of fish, fried chicken and some veggies. It was actually lunch at 3 pm. Then he brought us to his church on a hill.
His story reminded me of what Fr. Acong did in Apad, in my home province, Quezon, in the Philippines. He raised funds over a 5-year period mainly through his family and contributions from his flock. The two-story building could house 250 people during church service conducted in English, Bahasa, and Nepalese. Apparently, some workers from Nepal have become converts.
When the good Pastor, in his late Fifties judging from his youthful looks, brought us to the upper floor where his office is located, we saw in another room several members of the choir or band apparently in a practice session. Lucy, a Filipino, and her daughter and son, were there and greeted us enthusiastically.
In the meeting with the Pastor, he told us in detail how he was able to raise almost RM400,000 to build the church from the savings of the church-goers who were mostly of Indian origin. He himself is Indo-Malaysian. His next big plan is to build an orphanage at the back of the two-acre property that his church had bought out of their savings.
Yesterday, we travelled by car for two hours to a township outside Johor. The place is called Pontian. We went into one of the interior villages and met with Ken Kwan, his wife Tan Suan Chen, and their 9 children. I could not see any neighbor in this Malay village. They are the only Chinese family in this Malay village. It was quite courageous of them to move from KL to a remote place like this. With the help of some friends from KL, the couple built a house from second hand construction materials of two houses which were torn down.
Their house looks spacious enough for a big family like theirs. To survive, the family grow vegetables on their two-acre lot. Their children range in age from 16 to 6 months. Ken and his wife remembered Tony as their pastor more than 12 years ago in another place in Malaysia. They even remembered one his sermons.
It turned out Ken is himself a Pastor but without a congregation yet. How he will raise and grow his flock is still a dream. Meanwhile, he agreed to be our contact person in this remote place. He brought us to his Malay friend, who prefers to be called Boy. Boy showed us the foundations of the house he has been building for the last eight years to replace the crumbling wooden structure they inherited from their great great grandfather.
He said he would save enough and partner with Habitat in getting the house done. Tony estimates the house will cost around RM18,000. We told Boy we would exert efforts to help him and demonstrate to other Malay families how we all could work together to address their housing needs.
Then we rushed back to Johor where we met with Michael Yeo, senior pastor of the Church of Praise, and Steven, their accountant. They showed us a 10,000 sq. m. lot which belongs to their church. The piece of land is overlooking squatter communities along the Sungai Danga river. Michael says we can collaborate on building a community center here in which both Habitat and their church can manage to provide services to the families across the road, along the river. It is an ideal site for a Habitat Resource Center which can train unemployed youth from nearby communities on house construction skills so they themselves can repair or build houses for target households.
We went back to the hotel with gratitude in our hearts. Those Pastors had made our day.
Cheers!
Our first contact was with Timothy Li, senior pastor of the Awe Charisma Tabernacle. We met him by the road and he promptly led us to an eatery and bought us lunch consisting of fish, fried chicken and some veggies. It was actually lunch at 3 pm. Then he brought us to his church on a hill.
His story reminded me of what Fr. Acong did in Apad, in my home province, Quezon, in the Philippines. He raised funds over a 5-year period mainly through his family and contributions from his flock. The two-story building could house 250 people during church service conducted in English, Bahasa, and Nepalese. Apparently, some workers from Nepal have become converts.
When the good Pastor, in his late Fifties judging from his youthful looks, brought us to the upper floor where his office is located, we saw in another room several members of the choir or band apparently in a practice session. Lucy, a Filipino, and her daughter and son, were there and greeted us enthusiastically.
In the meeting with the Pastor, he told us in detail how he was able to raise almost RM400,000 to build the church from the savings of the church-goers who were mostly of Indian origin. He himself is Indo-Malaysian. His next big plan is to build an orphanage at the back of the two-acre property that his church had bought out of their savings.
Yesterday, we travelled by car for two hours to a township outside Johor. The place is called Pontian. We went into one of the interior villages and met with Ken Kwan, his wife Tan Suan Chen, and their 9 children. I could not see any neighbor in this Malay village. They are the only Chinese family in this Malay village. It was quite courageous of them to move from KL to a remote place like this. With the help of some friends from KL, the couple built a house from second hand construction materials of two houses which were torn down.
Their house looks spacious enough for a big family like theirs. To survive, the family grow vegetables on their two-acre lot. Their children range in age from 16 to 6 months. Ken and his wife remembered Tony as their pastor more than 12 years ago in another place in Malaysia. They even remembered one his sermons.
It turned out Ken is himself a Pastor but without a congregation yet. How he will raise and grow his flock is still a dream. Meanwhile, he agreed to be our contact person in this remote place. He brought us to his Malay friend, who prefers to be called Boy. Boy showed us the foundations of the house he has been building for the last eight years to replace the crumbling wooden structure they inherited from their great great grandfather.
He said he would save enough and partner with Habitat in getting the house done. Tony estimates the house will cost around RM18,000. We told Boy we would exert efforts to help him and demonstrate to other Malay families how we all could work together to address their housing needs.
Then we rushed back to Johor where we met with Michael Yeo, senior pastor of the Church of Praise, and Steven, their accountant. They showed us a 10,000 sq. m. lot which belongs to their church. The piece of land is overlooking squatter communities along the Sungai Danga river. Michael says we can collaborate on building a community center here in which both Habitat and their church can manage to provide services to the families across the road, along the river. It is an ideal site for a Habitat Resource Center which can train unemployed youth from nearby communities on house construction skills so they themselves can repair or build houses for target households.
We went back to the hotel with gratitude in our hearts. Those Pastors had made our day.
Cheers!
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