Film festival to introduce youth outreach program this year

KOTA KINABALU: The Borneo Eco Film Festival (BEFF) has widened its reach this year by introducing the Youth Outreach Programme where its team will visit secondary schools, colleges and universities here.

BEFF co-founder, Dr Agnes Agama said because it was the first time they were organizing the program, they were unsure what the response would be like.

“Because it is our first year of going to schools, we didn’t really know what to expect and actually the response has been quite impressive.

“The students are really excited and they are very environmentally aware already which is great news. Through the program we encourage them to think more about the environment outside than what they learn from textbooks is quite important and to think about the environment on a larger scale,” she said during a press conference on BEFF here yesterday.

Festival Director, Melissa Leong who was also present at the press conference added, “we talked about issues like food waste, plastic use and we showed them the trailer for Landfill Harmonic which is also about children finding opportunities and succeeding. One thing that impressed me as well was the response from the universities and colleges. A number of the students have contacted us to volunteer for BEFF that is also encouraging,” she said.

On BEFF’s Suara Community Filmmaking Programme, Agama said they sent out inviation and had received 40 confirmations from 12 teams from all over Sabah.

The participants are those who have stories that they have IPOH: A human foetus was found in a rubbish bin at the cafeteria of Raja Permaisuri Bainun Hospital (HRPB) yesterday morning.

A cleaner who stumbled on the foetus in an untied package at 10.55am, reported the matter to the hospital authorities. been working on and they bring their work to the programme’s workshops where they will be helped to complete it.

“Then there are those who have not refined their stories, they start learning from the workshops, the basic like how to use a camera and editing.

“The stories are usually about what is happening in their respective areas and this is the aim of Suara Community, to give these people their own voice and highlight the issues that they want the public to know about,” she pointed out.

Leong added that the trainers were from all over the country and they volunteered their services to help train the Suara Community Filmmaking Programme participants.

According to Agama, the participants of previous Suara Community program had gone on to produce films and using film as part of their work.

“Like the teams from Kinabatangan, they have been using films regularly in their conservation works to do outreach among other villagers in the area or to promote awareness in general.

“We have worked with KOPEL from Batu Putih Kinabatangan, Green Semporna, a youth club from Semporna working on conservation issues as well as a team from Pulau Omadang, an island off Semporna. The team comprises mostly women,” she said.

“We have a couple of success stories, one of them is local boy Nizam Andam whose films have been screened in international film festivals. Nizam’s films have been shown in Vietnam, Myanmar, Nepal and he has also been invited to Canada. He comes back every year as a trainer,” added Leong.

Remains of foetus found in hospital cafeteria

“I was shocked to find the foetus and called out to my colleagues for help,” Nor Hanizam Idris, 46, told reporters at the scene of her find.

She lodged a police report at the hospital police beat. Bernama