Project SHINE (short for Sanitation, Health/Hygiene, Impact, Nutrition & Education) in collaboration with Clinical Research Centre, Sarawak General Hospital & Penan Women Project. The medical outreach service is limited due to accessibility, lack of human resources & limited medical supplies. This 7-days project will be 100 Penan households (equivalent to 300-500 Penans from mixture of villages with & without access of primary medical healthcare)

The project details are as follows:-

1. This is an annual trip organised by PWP to the remote Penan villages spread around Ulu Baram River, which are only accessible via logging roads with 4WDs. In 2017, PWP had similar trip with few medical doctors & realised that this initiative should continue & further expand to other villages.
2. In essence, the 2018 trip, the medical team (consisting of multidisciplinary healthcare professionals, allied health and field researchers) will be giving medical healthcare treatment, consultation, healthy lifestyle education and disease surveillance on the Penans.
3. Non-medical volunteers will be assisting in simple hygiene practices, local engagement, installing simple DIY Solar Panels Off Grid & Water Filtration System (subject to sponsorship & availability).
4. When: March 2019 (Initially it was end Oct 2018, due to weather conditions, we postponed this to March 2019).
5. Problem that we are addressing:

• Medical accessibility to rural communities in Ulu Baram that are still not yet registered for scheduled visits by the local healthcare team
• Lack of healthy lifestyle awareness and practice within the rural and urban Penan communities.
• Lack of disease prevalence data on both communicable and non-communicable diseases among the Penans.
• Dogs are the Penan’s companions during hunting. With the recent outbreak on JE & Rabies around Sarawak, the community are exposed to the diseases.
• Addressing inequality of marginalised communities where they deserve the right to basic healthcare like the rest
• Stigma of modern medical practices is still at large in the community versus traditional practices, affecting the current population that is decreasing rapidly.

6. Project Goal/Outcome:

• Education and empowerment of the Penan communities on healthy lifestyle and hygiene practice - starts from home, start early for their children;
• policy and improvement on rural medical accessibility in-line with the policy of the Ministry of Health from the new government of Malaysia.
• For the Penan, increase of sense of self-esteem, change of perspective of modern healthcare vs jungle practices.

7. Project Output:

8. Social Impact

9. Endorsements:

• Dr Ooi, consultant paediatrician at Sarawak General Hospital who has designed this project & offered testing kits for flaviviruses such as dengue and JE for the Penan community.
• Dr Chua Hock Hin, State Infectious Disease specialist, supported the project and emphasized the need for disease surveillance in rural Sarawak communities.
• The medical team in Ulu Baram are ready to mobilise to support this project.

10. Estimated project cost:

• RM91,000 (RM30,000 medical supplies, RM31,000 logistics for 15 pax of medical team & volunteers for 7-days, RM20,000 solar panel + RM10,000 portable clean water filtration system for 100 families).