Project IGNITE, previously known as ASEAN Project is one of Project Based on Exchange (PBox) that was initiated by AIESEC Local Committee in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Through Project IGNITE 2016, AIESEC wish to enhance the socioeconomics of the indigenous communities in Kampung Kachau Luar, Semenyih. In the field of entrepreneurship, by collaborating with Fakulti Ekonomi & Pengurusan (FEP), various efforts to help indigenous communities to enhance their socioeconomics will be introduced. Among the initiatives introduced are helping them in promoting their eco-tourism (jungle trekking), selling of their handicraft products, provide short-term courses such as basic accounting and bookkeeping to the aboriginal communities and many others.

Besides helping them to enhance their socioeconomics, education is also very important at the moment. It is the biggest challenge for these indigenous community in order for them to compete in the modern world. Considering dropout percentage among orang asli children is very high, efforts to channel the importance of education to the indigenous communities will also be carried out with the help of the international facilitator. By doing this, we sincerely hope to reduce the education gap between the urban and orang asli children in Malaysia.

Workshops that focus on secondary schools , private higher learning institutions , and matriculation colleges around the Kajang, Bangi, Semenyih and Cheras areas will also be held and facilitated by exchange participants .The workshop is conducted to educate high school students on the knowledge of social entrepreneurship as well as the relevant soft-skills needed for career development. We wish to reach out to youths in order to prepare them for future regional economic challenges.

The project framework is designed based on AIESEC Global Compentency Modal to ensure positive and sustainable impact are being delivered to the community. Through our project , we wish to :

1. Assist the indigenous community to support their socio-economic growth

Due to the wide disparity in educational status between the local indigenous community and urban communities, most of the indigenous community in Kampung Kachau Luar are unable to compete with the urban community. This cause the job range available for them are very limited. Most of them earn a living by exploiting the forest resources or work in the construction field. Most of the time, their low income are only suffice to cover up their living cost. Whereas some of the family are dependent on government’s allocation for a living. AIESEC hopes to lend a helping hand to underprivileged communities so that they can support their living costs by own efforts .

2. Ensuring improved outcomes for Indigenous families and communities to reduce Indigenous disadvantage

For Orang Asli, the most obvious and reliable way to earn an income is through sustainable exploitation of the resources on their forest. Every effort should therefore be given to assist the Orang Asli in obtaining full benefits from their resources. We wish to assist the villagers by promoting their eco-tourism (jungle trekking) to more students so that they can generate income from there. Besides, we together with the international students would want to assist the villagers in selling their handicraft products. The full income generated will be given back to the villagers.

3. To reduce the education gap between the urban and orang asli children of Malaysia

The dropout percentage in this village is comparably high. A lot of children are not attending school even some have reach the age of six. It is without a doubt that the grasp of the English language is an essential skill to survive in this globalized world . However, the usage of English in this village is still at a very unsatisfactory level. Most of the kids cannot understand basic English. Through our project, we wish to channel the importance of education to these children.

4. To empower rural and urban youths with relevant soft-skills for career development as a preparation to face the regional economic challenges

Project IGNITE want to expose to students the opportunity available for their career in future. It’s undoubted that the hard and fast technical knowledge that we learn in classroom is only a part of what’s necessary to land our dream job. In this globalized century, companies are also looking for employees who are equipped with people oriented soft-skills.

5. To expose youths with knowledge and understanding of social entrepreneurship and social development in Malaysia

Students will be exposed to a new entrepreneurship concept, that’s social entrepreneurship. It is a type of business idea that attempts to draw upon business approaches to find solutions to social, cultural or environmental problems. Through this, we hope to let students understand the social problem existed in the country and wanting to encourage the student to find creative and innovative solution idea to those issues. Interesting prizes will be given out to best idea.

This is a 6 weeks project starting from 8th July – 22nd August. Some project highlights throughout the whole 6 weeks are :

1) Community development project at indigenous community village

Different activities will be carried out by the volunteers on each visit to the orang asli village. The activities proposed are as follow :

a) Entrepreneurship courses and training 

- Seminars and entrepreneurship courses to Orang Asli communities, in the efforts to give wisdom and increased knowledge towards improving the skills of the Orang Asli community in enhancing their socio-economics are given. 
- These seminars and courses include explanation sessions and exposure regarding business opportunities that can be pursued by the Orang Asli people.

b) Promotion / Marketing of Ecotourim(Jungle Trekking) and their handicraft products

- All means of promotion via online platform or physical promotion to students will be carried out by volunteers to introduce Orang Asli jungle trekking program to the public. This will help to generate some extra income for the villager. 
- Besides jungle trekking, we wish to have a mini Global Village on that day as well for the volunteers to showcase their culture to students as well as the local indigenous people.
- Exhibition and roadshow will be organised by volunteers to showcase and sell the Orang Asli handicraft. All income generated will be fully given back to the villagers.

c) Improve the condition of their dewan sebarguna and paint some of these villagers’ houses
- Dewan sebarguna is the place where most activities will be carried out. It’s the place where children will gather around . Some condition like the carpet used is already old and torn. We wish to help them to get new mat so that a safe, fun and comfortable condition is prepared for the children. 
- Community project like painting houses of some villager will be done by our exchange participant

2) Education project for the local indigenous children

a) IGNITE Mentor-mentee Program

- The volunteer as the mentor while the children as the mentee will have fun interactive session for the latter to learn about the importance of education.
- Volunteers will have to come up with interesting way of delivering English modules like story telling and sing song. 
- We hope to have a collaboration with Dyslexia Sarawak in designing the module and ensure the sustainability of this education project.

3) Secondary Schools and Campus Workshop
- The workshop is conducted to educate high school students on the knowledge of social entrepreneurship as well as the relevant soft-skills for career development and social development.
- A “BUSINESS CHALLENGE” Competition will be held during workshop for students to come up with their own business ideas solution to social problem and they need to pitch them. Prizes will be distributed to groups.

4) Small and medium sized enterprise visiting
- The program is carried out to provide an opportunity for volunteers to understand the local market status and operations of the organization in Malaysia . In addition , we also hope project IGNITE volunteers can benefit from their exchange and bring that knowledge back to their country .

We do agree that this is a pretty ambitious project, especially since there are many who say that any project is doomed to failure if it requires active participation from the Orang Asli communities. It is worthwhile to note that this kind of thinking is existed because there are already various activities, infrastructure and facilities in place for providing quality opportunity, quality income, and quality living for the Orang Asli. Many organisations had periodically enter the Kampung in the hopes of changing the lives of the Orang Asli. Nevertheless, the outcome remains poor and the Orang Asli still remain at the fringe of society

We want to do things differently. We still have a strong, unwavering belief in the Orang Asli community. We believe that empowerment is the answer. How do we do it? It’s not an easy task. It will take a long time but we will make sure the project is sustainable and impactful. While our dreams are ambitious, we always start small.

We really hope that we can get the fund and help those villagers in Kampung Kachau Luar.

We also wish to reach out to the youths out there as they are the future decider of Malaysia. Workshops which aim to deliver the relevant soft-skills for career development to secondary school students will be carried out too. Through our outreach, we believe in impacting our youths for Malaysia’s future economy.