GIVEN its geographical terrain, Sarawak proved to be a daunting challenge to the government in reducing the number of poor households in the state.

The state was expected to assist 11,400 poor households in 2011. At the same time, it was entrusted to verify and "zerorise" the list of 17,830 poor households in the open registration list. The verification was done to ensure no poor household was left out for the assistance.

But reaching out to these households was not an easy task due to the limited accessibility and resources.

It was then that the idea of Capacity Building for Graduates (CBG) programme cropped up. The programme, a brainchild of the state government, seeks to train and retrain graduates in order to increase their employability and marketability.

The state government also saw this as a good way to meet the demand for skilled workers under the Sarawak Corridor for Renewable Energy (Score).

Focusing on helping those on he list of poor households, graduates were placed at several agencies to enable them to acquire skills that will then be applied to the task of verifying the poor households.

A Verification Team of 215 personnel was formed with their members comprising employees of departments and Focus Groups. The team spent a total of 99,000 hours to get the job done in two cities, 40 towns, 26 bazaars, 1,203 villages and 1,166 longhouses.

Progress in the first nine months was slow and the team, feeling the pressure, increased their performance by 320 per cent in the final three months of last year, after having made a public declaration to deliver their promise to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak in September.

The Sarawak team, with the help from 16 implementing agencies, finally achieved its target of getting 11,400 low-income households to participate in the 1Azam programme by the third week of last December, a week before their targeted deadline.

According to the graduates who were part of the CBG team, it had not been easy to deliver what was promised. The graduates had to verify not only the poor households but were also required to file reports and record their findings before the given deadline.

"Come rain or shine, the team persevered. At times, we had to sit and wait for hours for the rain to subside before continuing on our journey. I was quite lucky as most of the participants in my coverage area were accessible via cars," said Lydia Turky, who covered the area of Mukah.

The 26-year-old Mechanical Engineering graduate found it difficult to communicate with the participants at times due to the language barrier but made the effort to get her friends to translate or find every possible way to get the message across.

"Some participants made excuses that they were not interested in opening their own business. We had to sit them down and explain to them the importance of the 1Azam programme and see what best suit their lifestyles and capacity.

"It is difficult to see poor people suffering. Some of those who were ill could not even afford to have treatment. I am hoping that the 1Azam programme will be able to transform this situation soon," said Lydia.

Another graduate, Dolly Jules Albert Kambun, 25, said the skills picked up in the duration of this project had proved to be valuable after all.

"I am an event management graduate. I have been on this project for about a year now and it is way harder than organising an event. This project has taught me people management skills and I am sure the skills will come in handy in my future projects," she said.

Dolly Jules added that she was confident the 1Azam project would bring about positive changes to her hometown in Sri Aman.

1Azam participant Mahdan Hai, 54, could not find a way out of the shackles of poverty until he learnt about the 1Azam programme.

Through Azam Tani, the fisherman bought boats and other essentials in an attempt to improve his lifestyle.

Mahdan, who had earned RM576 monthly before participating in the programme, has since seen his earnings increased by more than 150 per cent jump to RM1,500 monthly.

Despite his age, 74-year-old Gawing Saging had refused to rest on his laurels and jumped at the opportunity to improve his livelihood.

Gawing started a small-scale corn farm through the Azam Tani programme and currently makes RM1,200 monthly, compared to the meagre RM200 previously.




Read more: 1Azam help for 11,401 households - Northern - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/streets/northern/1azam-help-for-11-401-households-1.53360#ixzz1x9tq3p1W