Tackling challenges through a shared responsibility
He attributed their results to joint efforts with business communities and private corporations.
“We cannot make a change alone. Our work revolves around people, bringing forward the strengths of their communities while facilitating opportunities for them to shape the places and spaces around them.
“We focus on a cross-sectoral and inclusive approach, where volunteers and targeted communities lead and organise projects together.
“Our projects often bring together public and private sectors and government to form an ecosystem in supporting one another.
“We raise funds through crowdfunding and private corporations that want to sponsor the Orang Asli community as part of their corporate social responsibility or team building activity.
“We are thankful to have different partners supporting our projects,” said Oei, adding that Epic also takes part in emergency relief efforts.
In the long run, their aim is to ensure sustainable income growth for the Orang Asli community.
“Recently, we have started to expand our focus areas to include food security, economic development, education, and health and wellbeing.
“We are seeking to grow a network of partnering solution providers to collaborate with to create an integrated development model where the solutions can complement one another and not exist in isolation.
“The pandemic has brought about many challenges for our team to continue the previous model of bringing masses of volunteers into the Orang Asli communities.
“Therefore, there’s been a lot of focus on building internal capacity within the communities so that they can help themselves and their neighbouring communities,” shared Oei.
For example, the group has trained a few teams of Orang Asli to build and repair homes, allowing them to be self-sustaining.
“To take it a step further, we also want to channel more projects to them, giving them greater income opportunities.
“We hope that these initiatives would then give them the capacity to contribute to their communities, lowering the dependence on external resources and eventually leading to long-term sustainable income growth,” he said.
In ending, Oei has this to share. “We strongly believe that the challenges of the marginalised Orang Asli communities are not the sole responsibility of the government, but a shared Malaysian responsibility.
“We as individuals of the public need to step up to be the solution. The government needs to learn how to be honest and vulnerable about its challenges, trusting and engaging Malaysian citizens to solve the collective challenges together.
“If we can do that, we will be able to do amazing things. This is our testimony at Epic,” he said in conclusion.