MORE than 10 Orang Asli villages in Rompin and Pekan have long-awaited new toilet facilities, which they built themselves with the help of civil society group The Global Peace Foundation (GPF).

GPF, a non-profit organisation with a mission to build resilient and cohesive Orang Asli communities, provided the guidance and construction materials for the toilets, which are now benefitting 350 Orang Asli villagers.

Foundation CEO Dr Teh Su Thye, who took The Malaysian Insight team to visit these villages, said his team would run a needs assessment first to see what each village required other than the solar water project, which his team had completed for the Orang Asli in 2016.

“For every village that we plan to carry out a project, we would first gather the villages to do a needs assessment, where we basically ask if they are interested in a toilet, and what are the challenges of practising open defecation.

“Once we see they are interested, we also ask them whether they are willing to spend time and effort on building the toilet.

“We will teach them but they have to be committed to doing it. That’s a very important condition.

“We don’t build it for them, but we teach them and let them take ownership of the toilet,” he said, adding that this would empower villagers to learn to build other things in the future.

“Our role is to provide them with the materials for the washroom and basically guide them along the process.”

Teh said his team would talk to the villagers about digging a manhole for their sewage system from the toilet, discuss how big each toilet should be as well as a convenient location for the residents in each village.

He said they also teach the villagers the importance of proper hygiene.

Life made easier

Over the past 10 years, GPF has worked with various poor communities on the peninsula and in East Malaysia.

The toilet project in Pahang began in October last year. To date, at least 10 Orang Asli villages now have their own toilet.

Salim, 43, and his family were used to walking deep into the forest of Kampung Cerampak in Rompin to answer the call of nature.

Yet for the first time ever in October last year, Salim’s family and several other Orang Asli villages in Pahang now have access to toilets they built themselves.

While access to a toilet facility in an urban home is common to many, it is still a luxury for some, particularly the Orang Asli, who practise open defecation in either forests or rivers.

“At first, we were a bit unsure on how to build the toilets, but after the foundation was laid down, we had a much clearer idea and it was a lot easier to build,” Salim said.

He has been living Kampung Cerampak in Rompin with his wife, four kids, and seven grandchildren for more than 20 years.

The village is situated in the middle of an oil palm estate about 8km from town.

Salim, who does odd jobs, told The Malaysian Insight that he had built the toilet with just the help of his wife, Nora, and his son, Ann.

He said it took the three of them about a month or two to get the toilets completed.

“We had to divide our hours between working and building the toilets,” he said.

“With this toilet, it is truly a luxury. Before this, we would have to go into the forest, which is very worrying at night as we would have to do it with flashlights.”

Salim’s wife, Nora, also 43, said the toilet has helped her and her daughters as they no longer have to collect water.

“The children can also shower several times a day now. They are much cleaner and we do not need to worry about them being dirty all day,” she said.

“Laundry has also been made easier for us. Now we just need to turn on the tap and do our laundry. We no longer need to carry heavy pails of water.”

Not far from Salim is Nordin, another Orang Asli living in Kampung Cerampak, who said his family would have to travel 100m into the forest to answer the call of nature, keeping an eye out for cobras along the way.

“I feel happy and relieved now that my family no longer needs to endanger themselves,” he said.

Previously, Nordin, who lives with 10 family members, would have to collect water in a pail, which was heavy, from a nearby water tank to shower. He and his family also contracted leprosy because their water source was not clean.

To get clean water for the toilets, he negotiated with the estate manager to dig deeper into the existing pond using an excavator.

“It was difficult for us without the toilets. We would have to collect water from the nearby source several times a day,” Nordin said.

“At the same time, we have to be careful with how much water we use from the pail as we want to avoid going back repeatedly to collect more.”

Endang, 52, who lives in Kampung Binjai in Pekan said previously, they would only shower once a day to save water. Now with the toilets, they can shower up to three times a day.

“Honestly, I’m very happy that we now have toilets. It is nice that we can shower without worrying,” he said.

In the past, Endang and his family would seek out locations in the forest to shower and answer the call of nature.

“Whenever we walk back, we sweat again. It was all very frustrating,” he said.

“I’m also very proud that I built the toilet myself without anyone’s help except with the guidance of GPF,” he said.

There are currently 217,000 Orang Asli people in Malaysia, with most of them situated in Perak and Pahang.

More than one-third of Orang Asli live in hardcore poverty with many of their villages lacking basic amenities such as roads, sanitation and clean running water. – January 20, 2022.