For the past 25 years a Penan friend of mine from Sarawak, Borneo has been fighting the big fight while living in a foreign land … Canada.  As a result of his efforts to stop the devastating overlogging of Borneo he has been jailed, deported from his country, threatened with death, and his best friend was killed.  You can learn more about the struggles of the Penan in this recent JakartaGlobe article and about the loss of biodiversity in this National Geographic Article from November 08.

Last year he mentioned the dire need for a kindergarten school in Upper Limbang where the last of the nomadic Penan are living.  Currently there is no preschool/kindergarten in the area, especially for the villages of Long Gita, Ba Peresek, Long Pusit and Ba Nyakit.  Over 100 preschool/kindergarten children are living in camp situations with no schooling at all.

We have laid the foundation to meet these needs by developing partnerships and securing preliminary funding.  Our partners in this project are Keruan and PACOS, two local organisations working hard to improve living conditions for the people of Sarawak.  As well, a group of international teachers, churches and organisations working in this area have agreed to provide teacher training, salaries and ongoing support for the teachers and school.

The cost of building this school is $8000 US Dollars.  The amount raised to date is $3000 US Dollars.

So we still need to raise an additional $5000. All donations to this project greatfully appreciated.

110% of all money raised will go towards building supplies and all work will be done by the local population, who will take ownership of the school once it is built.  Hopefully construction will start in April 2010 with the goal of having the school built by July.

pictures by Bintulu Town, onekell and voss on Flickr