Recycling, educational centre at Gaya Island

KOTA KINABALU: The Kota Kinabalu City Hall (DBKK) will set up a recycling centre and educational centre at Kampung Lok Urai on Gaya Island under its ‘Kasih Sayang’ project, said Mayor Datuk Yeo Boon Hai.

Yeo said the recycling centre is expected to be operational by the end of this year.

He said the Kasih Sayang project would involve the Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, City Hall, Tanjung Aru Community Development Leader Unit (UPPM) and the Gaya Island community.

“We are very excited as this is the second time we are entering Gaya Island with the Kasih Sayang project. We believe we are now stronger, more organized and more determined to provide the recycling centre.

“And, we have a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that is prepared to work with us, a few companies that are prepared to support us financially so that we can organize people to collect the rubbish from the bins that we would place along the bridges, especially papers and plastic bottles, after which we will arrange to recycle them,” Yeo said after officiating at the beach cleaning activity organized by the Hunger Movement at Tanjung Lipat here yesterday.

After the activity, Yeo, together with 100 Tzu Chi volunteers and City Hall officers, visited Gaya Island to conduct a final survey.

“We went to check the 1,000 houses there, find out how many families stay in a house, how many children in a family and their illnesses, if any,” he said.

Yeo also mentioned that the Kasih Sayang project will focus on Kampung Lok Urai as the area is the dirtiest.

Apart from setting up the recycling centre, Yeo said City Hall would repair the surau at the village and build an educational centre next to it.

He said there is an estimated 600 children at Kampung Lok Urai but only a small number of them attend classes. Hence, City Hall, in collaboration with Tzu Chi, would start a Kasih Sayang class where the children will get to learn the Bahasa Melayu language, alphabets and arithmetic skills for about an hour each day. He added that the children would be taught by volunteer teachers from Tzu Chi and City Hall.

“The students do not have to pay (for the class). City Hall will spearhead this effort to provide education to the children. The sooner we educate them, the easier it would be for them to absorb good values,” he reckons.