Engineering Without Borders in Borneo: 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!