Since its inception in 2008, Kelab Alami, an environmental education club, has been on a remarkable journey with a profound mission of empowering local communities and bridging the gap between developers and the environment in Tanjung Kupang, Johor.
Kelab Alami is one of the winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2023, an annual award by The Star and Yayasan Gamuda that recognises selfless Malaysian unsung heroes who make a positive impact on society and promote unity among the people.
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Kelab Alami is one of the winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2023, an annual award by The Star and Yayasan Gamuda that recognises selfless Malaysian unsung heroes who make a positive impact on society and promote unity among the people.
For more SGHA videos, visit https://www.sgha.com.my/
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi, I'm Serena Rahman. I'm from Club Alami and we are a Star Golden Hearts Award winner for 2023.
00:08 In the heart of a rapidly developing coastal region in Johor, one organization stands as a
00:18 beacon of hope for the environment and the communities who call it home. Since its inception
00:24 in 2008, Club Alami, an environmental education club, has been on a journey of empowering local
00:31 communities and bridging the gap between developers and the environment. Its co-founder and
00:37 principal advisor, Dr. Serena Rahman, says Club Alami began as an initiative to educate children
00:43 from fishing villages in Tanjung Kupang about the richness of their natural surroundings.
00:49 So really it was to teach the children of the fishing villages of Kipat Kupang in Johor
00:55 about the seagrass, mangroves, islands and all of the animals that live within it. So it was really
01:03 to share this knowledge with the children and to give them a scientific structure for it because
01:09 they already knew most of it because the local knowledge is so high. These are children of
01:15 fishermen. So the whole purpose was to help them realize that this stuff that they see all the time
01:21 is special. We function at Club Alami based on local needs and desires. So it's not like we're
01:26 an external NGO going in to do stuff. That doesn't work. We are actually a grassroots organization
01:32 from the community. So my job is really to facilitate what they want to do. I train the
01:37 youth or anybody else about the habitat so that the community then can be the ones to share.
01:44 Serena says that as the children learned to gather data and knowledge of their natural surroundings,
01:49 they naturally became the environmental conscience of the region. She adds that developers who were
01:55 eyeing the area for growth inevitably recognized the importance of the children's insights.
02:01 And for them to use this knowledge, the ancestral knowledge, to share with others so that they can
02:10 get some pocket money out of it. So they were trained as citizen scientists first so that they
02:14 could learn how to put a scientific structure on the stuff that they already knew. But also
02:19 they were trained as ecotourism guides so that they could share this information with others.
02:23 And then by doing this, they would then let people know that this place is special.
02:28 And, you know, from there, get more people to understand that it's important and needs to be
02:33 protected. In meetings between developers and the local community, these young citizen scientists
02:40 provided invaluable information about the biological coastal habitat of the region.
02:45 So even though they were too young to attend these meetings, they were providing information
02:50 to like village elders and all of that for these meetings. However, in 2014, development in the
02:57 area escalated and Club Alami's objectives evolved. The head of social development at
03:03 Iskandar Regional Development Authority had then advised them to take a more proactive approach
03:09 in participating in the development process, hence the community involvement.
03:13 I don't believe in all this protesting nonsense. So it really is a capacity to build the community
03:20 to, you know, be able to speak to stakeholders about the habitats, to engage with them,
03:26 to make sure that they get to participate in the development, you know, get alternative
03:31 incomes from it, to continue researching it and studying it. So that was how it began.
03:36 And then it went through many cycles. But eventually what we have now is we have established
03:41 good rapport with the developers all around us. Club Alami had then established relationships
03:47 with developers such as Forest City and other stakeholders in the region.
03:51 The club members became a bridge between the community and those who aim to make changes in
03:57 the area. It's been so long that this community now can engage with others themselves. So fishermen,
04:03 land, they can work with us, they can meet with developers. And so we are able to set up this
04:08 sort of multi-stakeholder engagement that usually is very difficult for local communities to do.
04:14 But, you know, they're very capable now. So it's been 16 years. I think the community has
04:19 been empowered to some extent. Their work has also attracted volunteers,
04:24 interest from universities and positive relations with businesses in the region.
04:28 The club also conducts other initiatives to ensure a steady flow of income.
04:33 There's still so much life. So we need everybody to know about this. So we do this through the
04:38 education. We have tourism, which brings people over, we take them out to the habitats. And we
04:44 also do research, we do curated field trips for schools because I am a lecturer. So we are able
04:50 to, I'm able to co-teach sessions and that brings university groups down to us to learn. So we have
04:57 a very sort of unique position in that we can teach, we can offer training to corporates.
05:03 Through their efforts, Club Alamy has managed to generate substantial awareness
05:09 about the uniqueness and importance of their coastal habitat.
05:12 I don't believe in intervention. So I think it's very important that the community decides
05:17 what they want to do because it's their habitat, it's their place, it's their home.