Sky Lantern Festival changed to 'hanging lanterns'

KOTA KINABALU: The Rotary Club of KK Mandarin (RCKKM) has decided to modify the First Sabah Sky Lantern Festival after taking serious consideration the objections posted in the social media against the event.

RCKKM president George Ngui said taking into consideration the 'objections' posted in Facebook which have gone viral, the organising committee made the collective decision to call off the raising of the sky lantern event of the festival after some lively discussions.

George said: “As Rotarians, we organise activities to serve the communities and not to raise the anger of the public. In view of the negative response generated, it was best that we announce the calling off of the raising of sky lantern event of the festival.”

In its place, the First Sabah Sky Lantern Festival will replace the 'raising of sky lantern' event into a 'hanging lantern' event of the festival, in order to serve the purpose of promoting Chinese culture, raise awareness of environmental protection and conduct fund raising for charity organisations to help those who are in need.

“As Rotarians, we respect the opinions of everyone and humbly accept all the comments posted in Facebook. We also thank everyone for their concern over what is happening to the communities,” George said.

The organising committee of the First Sabah Sky Lantern Festival stressed that it was never their intention to offend the feelings of anyone. Nevertheless, they will maintain the objective of promoting positive values as aforementioned.

Meanwhile, the organising committee would like to share their preparation to ensure the protection of the environment for the event as follow:

“Recycle measurement for the First Sabah Sky Lantern Festival, the organising committee is alert to the need for environmental protection and the possibility of pollution before deciding to proceed, by taking the following precautions:a) The materials to be used for Sky Lantern should be made of soluble paper, bamboo and two pieces of wire, all of which are nearly 98% environmental friendly material.

b) Setting up of a recycle team to supervise the recycling process, mobilise villagers to undertake 'gotong-royong' in recycling the used sky lantern by sending it back to the recycling station set up at Raintree Beach Resort, with a reward system of RM5 per recycled sky lantern to the villagers as a token of appreciation.

c) Rotary Club of KK Mandarin will ensure that the recycling of the used sky lantern will be carried out within 48 hours after the festival.

For safety purposes, the organisers have contacted the Fire and Rescue Services Department and the police to standby at the site as an emergency precaution. To further ensure safety considerations for the Sky Lantern event, the following actions needed to be observed: (1) The allowable height of the sky lanterns as approved by the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia is 300 metres. The sky lanterns should not rise higher than 250 metres.

(2) The sky lantern is not a fireball, as once it is exhausted, it will fall down quietly.

(3) The village heads from Kg Simpang Tuaran, Kg Sagot, Kg. Termenung and Kg Indai have given their consent for this event and have agreed to mobilise a 'gotong-royong' to recycle the used sky lanterns.

All of the above, however, have become academic as the committee have now decided to switch to hanging lanterns instead of raising the sky lantern.