The road to Penampang

In my last post I told you a little about the place where I'm living in Penampang, Sabah so this time I'm going to try to fill you in a little more on how I got here!

I grew up in central England, spent four years studying mechanical engineering at university and then ended up back in central England, working for a large multinational company.  Four years into working there I felt like it was time to shake things up a bit  - I applied to have some time off and put in an application to Engineers Without Borders UK to be a placement volunteer.

An accelerated autobiography

The charity Engineers Without Borders UK (EWB-UK) work to try and change the face of engineering and use engineering to address global challenges.  They run a whole range of initiatives to meet these aims, including programmes with schools, students and universities, but they also send early-career volunteer engineers (like me!) to partner organisations around the world (like TONIBUNG in Sabah!). You can read more about Engineers Without Borders UK's strategy here (it's not that long and includes lots of stylish infograhics so worth a flick through!).  TONIBUNG have a long relationship with EWB-UK and have hosted volunteers for about 5 years - I'll tell you a bit more about what they do in a future post, but it's good stuff!

Enthusiasm

The process to become a EWB-UK volunteer was pretty much like applying for a job - I filled out an application form, went to an interview day, had a nervous wait for a response until I got a warm acceptance email, signed some forms and went to an enthusiastic induction/training course. One of the main differences was the obligation to do some fundraising.  The charity support volunteers' living costs while they are on placement, on the condition that we fundraise a contribution (£2000 GBP for me). With a lot of help from lots of people (see below) I arranged a number of events which included a pub-quiz night at a curry house, a ceilidh and cake sales.

Putting the fun in fun-draising?

Before you read the next paragraph, take a deep breath... it's about to get cheesy... It is, however, completely genuine.

I know that I've been fortunate in that I was really supported by everyone at work where everyone helped make it possible and easy for me to do this - thank you for your support (and all your sage words of wisdom!).  I should also thank colleagues in Raynesway who put on events themselves to contribute (significantly) to my fundraising. My friends and family (and even friends of friends) also put in significant effort to help me out with sanity-checking my applications, writing quiz questions, attempting (with mixed success) to answer quiz questions, dancing, eating my cakes, storing my stuff, cleaning my room, getting me to the airport and even running a ceilidh! Thank you to you all for your versatile and wide-ranging skills and (largely) enthusiastic support. Local businesses* were also really supportive in my fundraising efforts so thank you for your generous donations. Finally thanks to the team at EWB-UK for their support in the preparation, and who are continuing to support me while I'm here - they deal with all sorts of issues and questions from placement volunteers all over the world and I know that I definitely contribute to their workload! Having said thank you multiple times, I'm now going to act on my British impulse and apologise for having got so soppy when I'm only on the second blog post! I promise the next post will be different - I'm going on a site visit for a few days tomorrow so I'm sure I'll have lots to talk about.

* Some of the Derby businesses who contributed: Smith Hall Farm, The Distillery, Tollgate Brewery, Derventio Brewery
** If you want to make a donation, I've got a justgiving page here

Welcome to CREATE Borneo!

Hello (hello) and selamat datang (welcome) to a blog which I hope to use to provide informative bulletins on my life in Borneo and the organisations I am working for and with. My noble aims come with a disclaimer - I don't have a great track record for keeping any form of diary or blog (especially not one anyone else might like to read!) so this may turn into an irregularly-updated but informative mind-dump. Now you've been warned, welcome to the jungle!

Nama saya* (my name is) Jenny and I've just spent my first week as an Engineers Without Borders UK placement volunteer in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.

This is me attempting to take a selfie before my flight with my EWB t-shirt logo... I think I've learnt what a selfie stick is for...

While I'm here I'm working for a non-profit organisation called TONIBUNG (Friends of Village Development) who work closely with rural, indigenous communities. One of their primary aims is to enable access to clean electricity, predominantly through installing appropriate micro-hydro systems. (I'll try to tell you more about their work in a future blog post so you'll have to stay tuned for that one!)

Like several other members of TONIBUNG staff, I'm living at CREATE (Center for Renewable Energy & Appropriate Technology) which I'll show you around in this pilot post!

Selamat datang (welcome) to CREATE:

 

Which is here in Kampung Nampasan, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo:

Kampung Nampasan is a village about 30 minutes walk from the town of Donggongon.  This is the walk to town:

CREATE has a range of different functions.  It acts as accommodation for TONIBUNG staff and trainees, like me - here's my room:

 CREATE also has a workshop where they build the turbines for Micro-Hydro schemes and equip trainees with practical skills.  The workshop has facilities for aluminium casting (from old drinks cans), welding equipment and machine tools, as well as space for testing the turbines.

There's also a small office (the only air conditioned room!), and classroom areas on the balcony at the front of the building and on the jetty over the river.  This is the space looking out over the river and the view:

CREATE was also recently home to four trainees from remote villages in Sabah.  TONIBUNG were working with a partner, PACOS Trust (an organisation which support indigenous communities in Sabah).  This was a pilot programme with the aim being to give the trainees the practical and theoretical skills and knowledge so that they can set up successful workshops in their home villages, establishing community run businesses for boat engine maintenance.  I got here just in time to go to their graduation ceremony, hosted by the PACOS trust:

Back to CREATE, where there's also a common space under the longhouse which is used for relaxing, playing ping-pong, exercising, community events, disco night, karaoke and (apparently) darts competitions! 

 Finally, for completeness, here's the kitchen which smells delicious about three times a day...

... and the toilet/washroom area (which smells less delicious), equipped with a range of toilet styles and refreshing shower facilities!

*I'm sure you're impressed by my Malay language skills and I can only assure you that I'm (slowly) working on it!