Due to several Covid19 MCO phases implemented in Malaysia,  and the implementation of online learning, to get better connection, rural students in Sabah had to walk miles away to the end of their village where the signal (4G) is the strongest. Some have to climb up trees, roofs, hills or even sat on a suspension bridge to get nearer to the signal from nearby telco towers.

Come rain or shine, they have no choice but to do this (every single day throughout the MCO period) to ensure that they do not miss any classes due to recorded attendance. We shudder to imagine children from as young as 7 had to struggle and find ways to get access to the internet just to study.

Remember this story? Bridge over troubled Internet connection: 3 Sabah teens injured   and that’s just about connectivity. Not to mention parents that own old smartphones that couldn’t support online learning nor afford to get a new one. Most of them work as farmers or rubber tappers and depends on daily or weekly wages.

For some kampungs, the villagers cleared a small area in the nearby jungle to built a wooden makeshift hut, complete with bamboo table/bench and a simple zinc roof or plastic sheets to protect them from rain and sun.

To study at the hut, they brought along fully charged laptops, books and portable power banks for their mobile devices. There is no electrical connectivity to charge devices at the hut. If there is a thunderstorm, most of them had to run back home with their school bags. Its disheartening to learn how they have to inevitably go through this just to ensure they do not miss their online class.

In order to raise more funds, we have resorted to selling t-shirts and Inspiring Women Of Malaysia Card Game too.

WHAT DOES THESE STUDENTS NEED?

According to a data survey, there were at least 1,182 national schools in Sabah. And perhaps more than half of these are situated in the rural areas of Sabah. You can imagine the number of students that were affected.

Hence, we have pledged to keep this campaign on going throughout this pandemic period to ensure we continuously gather funds to assist the challenged income students with the followings:

1. New Laptop (preferably with MS Office).
2. New Tablets or Smartphones.
3. WiFi Modem.
4. Data SIM Cards.

We strongly recommend NEW devices due to:

1. New devices are able to support online learning better.
2. Old devices requires fixing and the cost to repair usually costs MORE than getting a new one. New devices comes with a service warranty in case there is a manufacturer defect.

Since data connectivity is an issue in most of these kampungs, and MCMC has banned signal boosters, we are exploring the possibility of installing a satellite dish by ConnectMe (www.connectme.my) but this too comes with initial budget to install, deposit payment and not to mention monthly repayments for 2 years.  At least RM2,000 is required for each installation.

Since we are not sure of the total estimates required (also depending on how many students we can assist) we hope Malaysians can be generous to chip in.

We put on an achievable amount of RM50,000.00 to at least help us kick start.

ANY spill over balance received from pledgers/donors or items in kind (as mentioned above) donated by compassionate parties, we endeavor to forward them to deserving students in Sabah that are truly in need. While our priority focus is on the rural B40 families, we are also open to help M40 families that were economically affected on a case to case basis.

OUR LONG TERM VISION/MISSION

We were appalled to learn that throughout Sabah itself there were only 3 (THREE) Pusat Internet Desa and 86 Pusat Internet 1Malaysia. We believe this was the initiative of the then Government. Unfortunately, it is NOT known how many of these centers are even working or still active. Most latest updates on these centers were in year 2015 and that was 6 years ago.

Nevertheless, we aspire to work on a more sustainable long term plan, that is to come up with Adopt A Kampung Program to engage community and empower rural folks to sustain the project. However, we cannot do this without the State Government’s support.  We welcome collaboration to work on this plan eventually.

AN APPEAL TO ALL 

Hence we are appealing to all generous Malaysian (and Politicians from Sabah Land Below The Wind) to work together with us on this mission. Every pledge that we receive will go into this campaign pool of funds so we can continue to GIVE the much needed help to rural students in need.

Latest update (3 February 2021): In the meantime, we have secured a partnership with Huawei and Umobile late last year (2020), where Huawei had donated 60 tablets and Umobile sponsored one year of free data to students in need. However, we believe that this is NOT enough and we hope to secure more similar partnerships with other device vendors/telcos.

LINKS TO OUR CAMPAIGN STORY IN THE MEDIA

1. Daily Express
2. Cambodianess
3. The Star (Part 1)
4. The Star (Part 2)

For more info about this project or to arrange donation in kind (new laptops, tablets, smartphones, modems etc), kindly contact us at hello@hanafundme.com.