This presentation was part of the 2015 ProSPER.Net Leadership Programme in Sabah, Malaysia.

1. Sustainability in a
Marginalized Urban Area
Through Education
Development
The Case of Numbak Vision Center, Sabah
29 August 2015
Mohamadu Boyie Jalloh
Jusiah Idang
Nor Omaima Harun
Chiden Balmes
Colonius Bi Atang

2. The Numbak Vision Center
• Established in 2002
• Has 6 teachers, 268 registered
students
• Teaches 5 subjects – Malay, English,
Math, Science, Moral
• Illegal migrants from the Philippines
Funded by the Food for the Hungry International-
Korea (KFHI), a global partnership that focuses on
poverty needs that relate to food and nutrition,
water resource development, primary health care
and income enhancement

3. Problems
1. Hostile attitude of the village toward
children’s education (lack of willingness
of parents to send their children to
school)
2. Lack of stable funding of the Food for
the Hungry International- Korea (KFHI)
for the Numbak Vision Center
3. Social resistance of the local people
toward the illegal immigrants (the influx
of undocumented neighbors makes the
locals feel insecure; they want to deny
the migrants access to basic services,
including education)
4. Lack of structured learning based on
basic standard of education

4. Objectives
1. To determine the factors behind the lack of willingness of parents to send
their children to the Numbak School
2. To examine the problem of funding instability of the Food for the Hungry
International- Korea (KFHI), the NGO that supports the Numbak Vision
Center
3. To analyze the socioeconomic and political factors that explain the
unfriendly attitude of the local people toward the illegal immigrants
4. To tackle the lack of structured learning that conforms to the basic
standard of formal education

5. Problem 1: Hostile attitude of the village
toward children’s education
• Economic survival (which entails forced labor for children) is more
important than education
• Parents lack appreciation of education because most of them are not
educated
• Parents are pessimistic about the future; they see education as an
additional burden instead of long-term investment
• Instead of studying, children have to serve as caretakers of their younger
siblings
• Parents think sending their children to school is a waste of time and money
• Lack of nurturing community for children’s education (lack of good
examples and role models for children)

6. Problem 2: Lack of stable funding for the Food
for the Hungry International- Korea (KFHI)
• Lack of long-term funding from external sources and the local community
(funding is based on seasonal, instead of regular, availability of funds)
• Inadequate support of the local community due to their negative perception
of illegal immigrants
• Funders do not understand the local context of KFHI’s operation (e.g.,
Korean donors would stop sending money if they can’t get hold of a specific
recipient/s whom they already consider as their child/children)
• Mr. Simon Lee and his team have done many fund raising strategies (e.g.,
putting up a shop, collecting from families and friends, etc.) but these
mechanisms remain unsustainable

7. Problem 3: Social resistance of the local
people toward the illegal immigrants
• Residents adopt a xenophobic attitude toward immigrants because they
feel threatened in terms of security and economic opportunities
• Since these migrants are undocumented (which means they are not
taxpayers), by legal definition, they are not regularly entitled to the public
services offered by the local government
• However, the migrants may neither be Filipinos nor Malaysians BUT they
are humans; thus they are entitled to universal human rights including
education.

8. Problem 4: Lack of structured learning
based on basic standard of education
• The goal of the Numbak Center is confined to basic literacy (reading,
writing, and counting)
• The curriculum is not the same as the mainstream one that is recognized
by the Malaysian Education Ministry
• There is wide age span in a single class (4 – 16 yrs old in one class)
• There is lack of regular staff and volunteers
• There is no proper assessment or monitoring of students/graduates

9. Conclusion
• The current initiative by the KFHI only serves as a short-term or band-aid
solution
• The problem cannot be solved by KFHI alone because it involves legal
issues related to land ownership and citizenship that only the governments
of the Philippines and Malaysia can resolve
• The root cause of the problem is the lack of legal documentation of
migrants to settle in Sabah, which can only be addressed through a
compromise between the Philippines and Malaysia

10. Recommendations
• Collaborative engagement between the government and NGO; the government
should take the leading role to settle the legal issues involved
• Serious intergovernmental and international talks involving the UN
Commissioner for Refugees or UNCHR, Local Government of Sabah and the
central governments of Malaysia and the Philippines
• Empower the children by equipping them with useful vocational and even
technical skills that are in-demand in the labor market
• Promote entrepreneurship in the local community to break the vicious cycle of
poverty
• Conduct comprehensive SWOT analysis to understand the needs of the local
people
• Adopt a bottom-up approach in reforming the migration policy

11. Terima Kasih, Sabah, Malaysia!