The Champions

During this pandemic, many of us work from home or spend most of our days in front of a screen. We have heard from many of you that you're starting to feel tired and burned out. It is common to feel this way when the boundaries between work and home are blurred. It can start to affect us mentally and physically.

In this post, we will cover symptoms of digital fatigue and some ideas on how to manage it. Check out our page for more information!

The Melanau Universe

The Melanau believe that our universe consists of fifteen 'lapih' (layers) of 'likou' (worlds). The 'tenawan' (human), 'menatéang' (animals) and all things that live in the 'guun' (forest) belong to the world called 'Likou Dagen Dua' (The World in the middle). There are seven layers of world above and below us. Living things can only travel between these worlds in the form of 'bedua' (spirit).

📸: A Melanau woman in the standard traditional wedding apparel | Courtesy of Kertaspapel

Happy Easter everybody!

One week ago we spent our last day at Kampung Haji Ismail for Phase 1 of iDOP Kuala Tatau. It was a wonderful experience getting to know the people we will be working with in carrying out the subsequent phases. With that, we would like to extend some words of appreciation towards those who gave their energy, time and financial support to make this program possible 🤩

First, we would like to thank L'Oréal Group, Incitement and HAUS KCH for their generous help to this programme. Without their support financially and by offering a platform for crowdfunding, we would not have been able to conduct this outreach or the other upcoming programmes for iDOP.

We would also like to thank the village chief, Ketua Kampung Haliza Haji Mudin, for hosting us and ensuring Phase 1 went as smoothly as it did. To the volunteers who brought us around the village and spent time with us, we would like to thank you for the friendships formed in those three days.

Moreover, we would like to thank the principal of SK Kuala Tatau, Encik Ibrahim Setok, and teachers Encik Hallem Yusof and Encik Jerome Lim for their willingness and eagerness to collaborate with us on the upcoming programme at the school. We look forward to meeting all the teachers and students of SK Kuala Tatau during our next trip 😄

To the Champions team, including Larissa Ping Liew, and our photographer Moses Paren, we would like to extend our greatest thanks for your zealousness in making Phase 1 a memorable experience for everybody.

We hope to see everyone soon in the next phase of iDOP! 🎉🎉

During our stay at Kampung Haji Ismail, we had various meetings with village leaders, the principal and teachers of SK Kuala Tatau, as well as different members of the community. We also spent time with 6 local volunteers who brought us around the village and shared invaluable insight into their lives 🌞

We were very grateful to have received such a welcoming response to iDOP and to see the willingness of everyone in collaborating with us on this project. Our goal was to engage as many different individuals from the community in order to develop projects that will empower them and leave a sustainable impact.

Seeing the eagerness of community members to collaborate also inspired us to work even harder in ensuring the success of this project.

Here are some pictures of the different people we met 🌟

Over the weekend, our team visited Kampung Haji Ismail for Phase 1 of the Indigenous Digital Outreach Programme (iDOP) in Kuala Tatau 😄🤩

Kampung Haji Ismail is home to the Vaie community, an ethnic group in Sarawak that mainly reside in Bintulu and speak the Vaie dialect. Although one of the main economic activities in this village is fishing, inhabitants are involved in different types of work such as owning small businesses, harvesting bird’s nest and making traditional foods and crafts.

The aim of our visit was to get to know this community in order to understand their needs better. We believe that success of iDOP requires us to truly understand the context of the communities we impact, and what better way to do this other than to spend some time with them?

Here are some shots from the 1st day! Follow the link in our bio for more updates on this project ✨