Kampung.

Kampung. Association for the Support of the rural population in Borneo Kampung. in German Facebook: Kampung.

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Back from Borneo

Last November we conducted our first project as Kampung e.V. and we finished it quite successfully. We were three: Beatcsy Geofferey, a freshly examinated nurse of the people of the Penan, Mila Compagnoni, a nurse from Lörrach Germany who had already conducted training workshops with Village Health Workers of the Penan, and Volker Königsbüscher, also from Lörrach, as supporter.

We have been in the villages Long Gita and Long Tegan in the area of Upper Limbang, a remote rainforest area (see maps attached to this posting). Mila and Beatcsy conducted two workshops with Village Health Workers of some villages of the Penan and handed over "mediboxes" with medicaments and hygiene items for daily use. We will give more details in our final project report on which we are working and which we will post online.

For the time being we start in Facebook with some impressions from our journey.

Enjoy!

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Sustainable medical and hygienic basic supply for Penan in Ulu Limbang, Borneo

Kampung e.V. has been established recently. Our first project aims at improving the basic medical and hygienic care of parts of the Penan tribe in Borneo. In the years 2008 -2010 Mila Compagnoni, co-founder of Kampung e.V., has volunteered to visit the territories of the Penan and trained Village Health Workers in basics of village hygiene, simple medical foundations and dealing with basic medicines of daily use. She has also provided material for toilets available and built this together with the residents. The respective villages of Penan, a formerly nomadic people in Borneo, are located in remote areas and have difficulties to access medical care.

The project has two modules:

1. Sustainable maintenance of "mediboxes": In 2009 and 2010 Mila prepared boxes with medicaments, sanitary articles, instruments and some other content. During trainings they were explained and handed out to local Village Health Workers. The content comprises only of medicaments which can be handled by trained laymen (e.g. Paracetamol, de-worming, anti-scabies, oral rehydration, etc.). Since the last visits the contents ran out and have to be refilled. We will assemble the medicaments, purchase, packing and transport of new content, and retraining in usage. This part of the project shall be regularly be repeated.

2. Toilette construction: "The most important achievement of medicine is the toilette" (and access to clean water). Still today many Penan have no toilettes in their villages despite their growing population. The project aims to deliver materials for certain simple toilettes which the Penan can assemble themselves.

The donations will directly be used for purchase of medicaments and materials and their transport. Depending on the financial situation we will start with villages which are more remote fom rural clinics and which have less own means (area upper Limbang). we want to repeat this work on a yearly base. If possible we would expand this supply of "Mediboxes" into other areas and Penan villages.

Links and reports (in German): - Ich bin eine sesshafte Nomadin. einszehn. Mitarbeiterzeitung des Universitätsspital Basel Frühling 2010 - Helfen wo der Pfeffer wächst. Südkurier 19.02.2010

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Until the 1960s all Penan people lived as nomads, communicating with different groups when on the move in the rainforest through a complex signal system of stick and leaf symbols they call oroo.

Oroo relayed such messages as, the person passing here was unwell, or the person who passed here was hungry.

Picture © Sophie Grig / Survival

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Balan the Blowpipe Maker

Balan the Blowpipe Maker from Ross Harrison on Vimeo.

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Took this during our community visit to one of Malaysia’s Penan deep rural village. I adore the Penan’s culture; mainly when it comes to treating pets (dogs) like family. The dogs have been trained as hunting dogs. Oh, all of them can swim very well, I mean really well. I don’t mean swimming pools — rapid rivers. 

I’ve asked these two young gentleman where are they going with the dogs, they said they are bringing them along to hunt at Limbang (Limbang is about 12 hours away). I was concerned and asked are they going to be okay - like, wont they jump off or something. They shook their heads laughing “No, they are used to this already! This is their 6th trips.”

… and can we talk about how the dogs like “Ah leave, you hooman paparazzi!”

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Stories From A Settled Tribe - The People of Long Lamai

Buy on - Lulu (there available also as PDF) - Amazon.de - Amazon.com

"IF someone says to you: 'the forest is nothing', I will come and say: 'come and live with me, with nothing. No money. Come and live with me in the forest for a few months - you will survive. And I will go with you to the cities with nothing - no money - how do you survive'" - Nelson Kelesau -

FOR SIX weeks in mid-2010 Louise Sopher lived in a village named Long Lamai with a tribe in Borneo known as the Penan, a once fully-nomadic, now mostly settled community. Whilst volunteering to teach English in the village I also got to work on my own project to collect stories from the villagers and to publish it in a book and sell it for the benefit of the community. HERE then is that book, containing thirty stories from twenty-one people; stories to entertain all ages with tales from Penan music, myth and legend to more serious ones about struggles in poverty, education and the need for the jungle to survive. Louise Sopher on Twitter - on Wordpress

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Foundadition assembly!

On January 17th, 2014 the founding assembly of 11 friends took place to found “Kampung. Association for the support of the rural population in Borneo”, to elect the board, to approve the statutes, and to stipulate the membership fee. Now we just have to get the registration by the authorities to start our work…

The board: Chairwoman: Mila Compagnoni Secretary: Volker Königsbüscher Treasurer: Klaus-Dieter Gonschorek The auditor: Michael Bierig  The membership fee can be chosen freely, but at least at EUR 10.

The board was tasked to do all steps to register at the authorities and for public benefit within six weeks.

More info to come!