Pudu Rotary Club
DISTRICT 3300 MALAYSIA
~~~~~~~~~Modern Hydrophonic Farming for the Orang Asli
Hydrophonic Farming is basically water-based farming and requires no ploughing, no weeding, no pesticides and no rotating plant cycles required. Half an hour of seedlings transfer will generate bountiful harvest of fresh pesticide-free vegetables.The Orang Asli literally means the "original people". They the in fact the aborigines of Malaysia. The particular group of aborigines we are specifically referring to have been resettled on land provided by the government about 24 kilometers on the outskirts of the city of Kuala Lumpur. There are about 50 homes with a total population of about 500 people. They live in make- shift homes.
In recent years these aborigines have somewhat improved their way of life and have some exposure to the modern way of life because of the rapid developments in Malaysia. This Hydrophonic Project will benefit them because of the following reasons:
We embarked on the abovementioned project in RY2000/01 by submitting a Matching Grant Application to RI through our newly elected District Governor-District 3300 Dr Low Teong. He took this project along with him during his DG training in Anaheim, USA and managed to get an international sponsor club, the Rotary Club of Pinnacle Peak of District 5510 USA, on the following basis.
- To provide a regular source of fresh vegetables to their community.
- Apart from being self sufficient, their youths can learn from this modern method of farming and eventually educate themselves to further improve their livelihood.
- Morever, other such communities could copy this method of farming and eventually produce their own vegetables.
Budget:
Pudu Rotary Club Contribution: - USD 1,100.00 International Sponsor : - USD 1,100.00 The Rotary Foundation : - USD 2,200.00 Total : - USD 4,400.00 We submitted this proposal before RY2001/02 with the hope that the Matching Grant can be realised before our confirmed launching date i.e. on 4th November 2001. The dateline for this project is fast approaching and plans are under way to have everything ready by this date. However, after visiting the site several times in recent months, it was observed that we require additional funds to provide water connection, electricity supply and also security fencing to house the Hydrophonic units, otherwise there is a good possibility they may be carted away. All these extras will now cost us a further USD 1,000.00. The Rotary Club of Gloucester UK will hopefully come to our assistance.
We sincerely hope to make this project a successful and meaningful one which ties in very appropriately with RI Theme this year — "Mankind Is Our Business"
