NAME ORIGIN: Sungai Lui is named after one of many streams flowing through the valley: Sungai means river, and Lui is the name of an ancient aboriginal chief of the area.
GEOGRAPHY: Sungai Lui is located 21 miles from Kuala Lumpur along a paved road, and is situated in a valley surrounded by high jungle-clad mountains and rubber small holdings. It has an abundance of fruit trees and is dotted with coconut palms. At the east end a waterfall roars down vertical rock slopes.
POPULATION: The people of the kampungs still tell how they moved their wooden houses on poles to the new location where the government had built a series of paved roads, At the entrance to the project area is Kampung Tanjong Pauh. Stretching from Sungai Lui into the surrounding hills are thousands of rubber trees planted 40 years ago, which – the residents tap regularly for a small monthly income. Men, women and children can be seen chopping the many varieties of bamboo to make products for outside markets. Recently forty-seven families began to work together on a fish pond project in an abandoned tin mine. Agriculture is an integral part of the community rate and is stressed in the local primary school where top honours were won recently for their demonstration garden plot. But as a high percentage of younger residents are employed outside the rich village, attention has been drawn away from traditional farming and many areas are left uncultivated.
Within this area the three kampungs: Tanjong Pauh, Kampung Masjid and Kampung Bahru, function under two headmen and one village council. These kampungs have basic services such as a primary school for 174 children, a mosque, two community centers, eight provision stores and coffee shops, a midwife clinic, and bus and taxi services to Kuala Lumpur. Electricity extends from Kuala Lumpur to fifty percent of the homes of Sungai Lui and both city and local water systems supply the village through a few strong-flowing public taps. The river water is used for bathing and washing dishes and clothes. Telephone services and a shopping center are located three miles away at the eighteenth mile settlement.
The average income of Sungai Lui households is Malaysian $210 a month. The residents are mainly small holders with three to four acres of land which provides partial support to kampung families. At least 33% of the employable adults work outside the village in varied occupations, some as teachers, military employees, and taxi drivers and many factory workers. There is a preponderance of tapped and neglected rubber trees and some fruit trees in the valley, many going untended and taken over by undergrowth. The people are industrious, rising early to cut bamboo, tap rubber, tend fruit trees and vegetables.
CHALLENGES: The Sungei Lui Human Development Project is a corporate effort involving both social and economic development. The project was begun by residents and concerned citizens of greater Kuala Lumpur with the knowledge and encouragement of public officials and business leaders. The consultation drew upon the current intentions of Sungai Lui people to strengthen their support base, revitalize village engagement and institute practical training. This project is seen as a demonstration of practical methods which are applicable to any rural community in Malaysia and, therefore, reduplicable elsewhere.
Fuller utilisation of the land is one of the present challenges to wider economic growth and fuller development of the entire community of Sungai Lui. Sungai Lui extends from the nineteenth to twenty-third milestones from Kuala Lumpur on a secondary road from the main highway run ning through the Ulu Langat District. Bounded on the north and south by the Ulu Langat Forest Reserve, the project area is approx imately three miles by one and one-half miles. Its 232 households are sheltered in wooden houses clustered along the road which is paved to the eastern edge of the village.
HISTORY: In the 1950’s national security made necessary relocation of many isolated houses into a more tightly clustered community known as Kampung Masjid on the paved road. Kampung Bahru, also in the Sungai Lui area, was moved in the early 1960’s so that a school compound could be built.
Local town councilmen and elders escorted consultants through the kampungs and adjoining farmlands and to the waterfall where their homes had been before the relocation. One local shopkeeper compiled a list of one hundred women who were–eager to volunteer to begin the tailoring industry. The sign-up sheet for parents wanting their children to attend kindergarten was soon filled up. Eager to discuss their needs and open to suggested recommendations, the villagers began to see that change was imminent. One grateful villager said, “Once this village was showered with stones, now we are being showered with gold.”
The presence of consultants from near and far had a profound effect upon the villagers. “Why did you travel so far to come to our village?’, they asked a successful, retired farmer from the USA. They were equally surprised when a secondary school teacher volunteered to teach drama to the youth and a timber supervisor volunteered to come on weekends to train villagers in the use of carpentry tools. Eight villagers from the Kelapa Dua Human Development Project were key to releasing some of the fears regarding the practicality of the program. They were paid a great tribute when a large crowd gathered to send them off at the final celebration and a local councilman came forward to say, “I am grateful from the heart!”
But the visitors and consultants in Sungai Lui not only injected fresh hope and new ideas, they were also visibly impacted by villagers. The excitement for all reached a peak at the closing when residents and guests alike created verse after verse of a song to a popular folk tune, claiming promises for the future of Sungai Lui.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Over 100 acres of paddy were reclaimed in 5 growing areas, with an increase in yield of more than 600%. Agricultural diversification was intensified through the planting of acres of new types of food crops.
Eleven families initiated, built and maintained a market which provides a wider range of fresh foods and staples. A multi-purpose agricultural center was constructed, used for machinery storage and maintenance.
The community environment has been vastly improved through the government construction of 3 bridges and a playground. Also constructed were 5 bus stands, 18 new houses and 3 new community buildings.
Community workdays have been the major form of corporate engagement for the construction of buildings, paddy reclamation, the installation of a community water system and community maintenance.
A water system has been installed by the villagers, servicing 60 homes. Sanitation has been improved by the government construction of 1800 meters of concrete drains and substantial retaining walls.
A daily preschool for four to six year olds has been conducted for up to 60 students and is now operated by 3 local teachers.
Training events have involved over one-third of the village population.
ADDITIONAL LINKS
Serusup HDP, Malaysia, Global Research Assembly, July 4, 1979
