By Asmahanim Amir
Pictures by Ikhwan Hashim

GUA MUSANG, 19 August 2019 – More than 200 people, including Government agencies and Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) such as Royal Malaysia Police (RMP), Fire and Rescue Department of Malaysia (FRDM), Ministry of Health (MoH), Department of Indigenous Development (JAKOA), National Registration Department (NRD) and Rescue Adventure Team (RAT 4×4) with the ASEAN youth volunteer was camped in Pos Gob, the Orang Asli (indigenous) village.

The ASEAN Youth Volunteer Programme (AYVP) Malaysia 2019 was held for five days, with the theme Poverty Eradication.

Director of University Community Transformation Centre (UCTC) UKM, Prof. Datuk Dr. Rokiah Omar said the exceptional feature of this programme is it involves volunteers and the Orang Asli community living in Pos Gob, an area which is very remote in Kelantan.

“Our focus is to give education to indigenous kids besides focusing on environmental sustainability and basic facilities through the edu tourism activities.

“This is the specialities that we give to the community (Orang Asli) to learn and feel the experience receiving guests so that they can conduct tourism activities to increase their income because in the area (Pos Gob) there are too many natural resource assets such as waterfalls, river flora and fauna and so on, which they can use to add their income,” she said at the launch of 70 four-wheel drive (4×4) convoy to Post Gob for AYVP here, recently.

She said AYVP is one of the ways to teach and educate the Orang Asli community to receive the guest and manage the inap house through the audio tourism activities.

To date the Orang Asli Pos Gob has built 19 inap house and one big hall with the help of UKM funds raised from CIMB Islamic donations.

“We hope with this exposure, Orang Asli community and AYVP volunteer can learn how to appreciate the environment because we need to save it for future.

“We are trying to make it more sustainable (environment), therefore the new technologies such as solar panel is used. We are also in the process to discuss with various government and private agencies to improve the existing facilities because there is no electricity, water is directly from the river,” she explained.

Prof. Datuk Dr. Rokiah hopes while that all the volunteers will gain useful knowledge and skills throughout the program and will be able to implement community projects after returning to their respective countries.

She also thanked all the agencies involved the AYVP Malaysia 2019.

For the duration of stay at the Pos Gob, all the volunteers underwent various activities such as asset mapping, build the package of edu tourism, jungle tracking, ASEAN Cultural Night, Excellent Student Awards Night from the UKM-CIMB Islamic Community Education Centre.

AYVP Malaysia 2019 gather 49 ASEAN youth from 10 ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippine, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam has been going on 27 days starting from August 1^st, involves activities around Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Kelantan.