Inner Wheel District 331 Joint Club Project 2015-2016

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In keeping with the IIW Theme this year, the clubs from District 331 came up with a unique idea to unite and jointly participate in a Project for Disaster Relief called “Community Mitigation of the Kota Belud Water Supply Crisis”.

As a result of the topographic changes of the Kadamaian River induced by the earthquake which hit Sabah in June 2015 and the mud floods which contaminated the river, the 2 water treatment plants Loji Pekan Kota Belud and Loji Bayayat are now operating at below their capacities. The affected villages are currently on water rationing and depend on the limited clean water supplied by Jabatan Air tankers which is barely enough for drinking and cooking purposes. While waiting for the situation to improve, some of the villagers have embarked on their own community mitigation measures to address the water supply problem. These include the reviving of their decommissioned gravity feed piped water system, installation of new wells and upgrading of existing ground water wells.

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The clubs in Inner Wheel District 331 have chosen this Project to assist selected communities in the vicinity of the Kota Belud district affected by this water supply crisis. The criteria for selection of the beneficiaries for this Project include the following:

• The villagers have organised themselves and demonstrated the urge to implement the mitigation measure on their own initiative.
• The villagers are willing to contribute sweat equity (through “gotong royong”) toward the implementation of their selected mitigation measure AND undertake the maintenance and up-keeping of the system.
• There are available water sources within the vicinity of the village.
• The target group shall be community based and the mitigation measure shall benefit multiple families.

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Under these scenarios, the funds contributed by the 8 Inner Wheel clubs in District 331 (ie IWC of Singapore, IWC of Singapore East, IWC of Singapore West, IWC of Sandakan, IWC of Miri, IWC of Kuching, IWC of Sibu and IWC of Kota Kinabalu) together with the donations received from well wishers within District 331, will be used for the purchase of construction materials, while the villagers will carry out the actual construction of the mitigation measures.

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Time-lines

After some in-depth discussions with the District Chairman, a paper� on the Project was prepared by certain members of the District Exco in early September 2015 and forwarded to the District Executive members for their feedback. Proposals and budgets were then prepared and technical assistance was rendered by the Rotary Club of Luyang (RC Luyang) in the vetting of the technical details of the various mitigation measures to be undertaken by the villagers. Details were carefully checked by both RC Luyang and Inner Wheel, deliberated on during September 2015 and the Project finally presented to and approved by the Inner Wheel District 331 Executive Committee in October 2015. The paper on the Project was then forwarded to the 8 Inner Wheel clubs in the District.

Clubs were asked to not only formally submit their interest in participating in the said Project but to also give an indicative amount of their proposed contributions.

Upon receipt of their confirmation, construction materials were then ordered and sent to the selected kampungs towards the end of December 2015. Work started in early January 2016.

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The kampungs selected are:

The mitigation measures undertaken in Kampung Pirasan Batu 2 have also benefitted the villagers of Kampung Pirasan Tengah, who were unsuccessful in their search for ground water; while that undertaken in Kampung Pirasan has also benefitted the villagers of the nearby Kampung Pirasan Jalan Menteri.

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Up-grading of ground water wells are currently in progress in two other kampungs, Kg Simpodon and Kg Baru Kinasaraban.

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Watch a video of the project:

As at 20^th March 2016, the total number of beneficiaries for this Disaster Relief Project is 301 families from 8 Kampungs with a total population of 1,660 villagers.

� On 21^st March 2016, additional donations were pledged by generous well-wishes from Singapore and Miri, Sarawak for this very meaningful project. These funds will be applied to assist more villages with their community mitigation measures to overcome the water supply crisis in the district of Kota Belud, Sabah.