Community Preschools in Borneo

Need your support!

Logging, plantations, and dams have forced Penan communities out of their forest homes.  The Penan people are among the world’s last hunter-gatherers.  But in just one generation, they have been forced into settlements, with few resources and scant training to adapt to a world where their native forest and traditional livelihoods are  being destroyed.

The Penan are the most marginalized ethnic group in Sarawak, Malaysia.  Government fails to provide Penan communities with basic services, partly in retaliation for Penan communities' stalwart resistance to destruction of their forests.  Penan are systematically denied land rights, birth certificates, citizenship status, education and training, decent health care, sustainable jobs, and transportation infrastructure.

Penan communities are organizing to save their remaining forests. They understand that educating their children is a key to defending their forests, culture, and sustainable livelihoods.  Desperate to build literacy within their communities, they send children to distant state schools, where they often face neglect, ridicule, and sometimes abuse.  Children frequently drop out, traumatized.  After age 12, children who have missed too much school cannot reenroll in state schools.

Help Penan communities protect their forests and culture!  Donate now!

The Borneo Project channels donations to three Penan community preschools, with learning in Penan language as well as Malay. Village preschools give kids ages 3 to 7 a “head start” on the education that will help ensure their communities’ livelihoods and rights.  The preschools provide basic nutrition for students, and teach basic literacy to interested adults. Community preschools are focal points for building capacity to resist threats of eviction to make way for logging, industrial plantations, and megadams.

With Malaysian Partners in Community Organisation (PACOS), the Borneo Project supports training for Penan women as teachers and school organizers.  We help  produce and distribute childrens’ books and games in Penan language, rehabilitate school buildings, and provide school supplies.  The Borneo Project is grateful for major support for the Penan Preschools from a donor-advised fund of the Tides Foundation, a matching grant by Brende & Lamb Tree Care of Berkeley, CA, and the generosity of numerous donors and volunteers.

Donate online at www.borneoproject.org , or mail checks payable to “The Borneo Project”.  We’ll send you our newsletter, action alerts, and if you wish a subscription to the award-winning Earth Island Journal.

All donations are tax deductible thanks to Earth Island Institute,

a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization.