Swepa to empower more women, light up more villages

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Women Entrepreneurs and Professionals Association (Swepa) is seeking to empower more women and electrify more villages in Sabah through collaboration with Barefoot College to set up a branch in Sabah or partner up with an existing college.

Swepa president Datuk Aminah Ambrose said the association had only managed to train three grandmothers and electrify 200 village households for the past four years through its signature Barefoot Solar Projects.

“The resources used has impacted too few as we see many hundreds of rural villages and kampong people as they continue to suffer without electricity as the sun sets each day.

“The on-grid power may not reach them in the foreseeable future.”

Aminah said Swepa planned to work together with the government and government agencies to develop the State.

“It is our desire; it is our dream for a greater impact to empowering more women and lighting up more villages in Sabah to bring the skills and technology into Sabah.

“This can be done through collaboration with Barefoot College to set up a college here or in collaboration with an existing college,” she said at Swepa’s 12th Installation and Charity Gala Dinner here yesterday.

The event was graced by Chief Minister Tan Sri Musa Haji Aman.

Aminah hoped that Musa would consider Swepa’s proposal on this matter.

The Barefoot College connects rural communities to solar, water, education, professions and advocacy to help communities and individuals take control of their lives and the wellbeing of their communities.

Under the Barefoot Solar Projects, she said Swepa had successfully empowered and completely transformed three women from four villages, namely Solar Mamas Tarahing, Gining and Rusni.

“These illiterate grandmothers bravely flew to India, Barefoot College to learn how to install and maintain solar panels, return home to electrify their own kampongs.”

However, she said many more villages in Sabah were off grid and lived in darkness after the sun sets.

“Swepa Barefoot Solar Project is now moving into Project 3.0 – two new villages in the district of Nabawan and two grandmothers will be sent to Barefoot College, Tilonia, Rajestan, India to be ‘Solar Mama’ following in the footsteps of the earlier three grandmothers.”

Aminah said the association had also started a social entrepreneurship programme called Enriche, which was the second phase of the Barefoot Projects.

This program consists of providing skills for the womenfolk and eventually operate a self-sustaining enterprise to earn a steady income thereby improving their livelihood, she said.

She said the skills currently learned by the village ladies were sewing or tailoring at Epal in Karamunsing Capitol.

In the pipeline, she said a Korean lady, Young Ha, has volunteered to come to Sabah and teach the women candleshade making.

“Swepa has ready clients for jewellery pouches, pencil cases and many more.

“There are lots more to be done in terms of production, branding and marketing.

“Our vision is to see our beautiful and unique Sabahan motif on these products which we hope to even market globally and bring in revenue through tourism for Sabah.”

This year, Aminah said Swepa was collaborating with Shine From Within to co-organize the Women Empowerment Festival (WEF), a new platform aimed at empowering women by giving them opportunities to become agents of change within their communities.

She said part of the WEF activities was the Mrs Malaysia and Borneo International Global 2017.

She said Swepa was also one of the charity partners and played a vital role to co-organize the fiveday four-night Sabah Tourism, Cultural and Charity visit by 18 finalists.

“This unique platform comprises a three-month transformative boot camp and a series of community service projects to support women in need and where participants share their personal journey to inspire all walks of women.