In December I tagged along to a village in Pahang for an overnight trip.
The trainer Ms Jacqui was a pro in getting the village farmers to discuss in groups on the topic of "Living in the city working for people versus living in the home town growing vegetables".
The training was done in the village Head's(Pak Kuyu) house. Pak Kuyu, his wife and son were in the living room. The women were punctual. The others drifted in according to our elastic rubber time. We can see that this group of folks were knowledgeable and gave pertinent information for the scribes to write down ideas on the mahjong paper with marker pens.
They were able to give the reasons for their poverty : 1. attitude 2. low education level 3. lack of opportunities in the village. Someone mentioned the word "malas" which could mean lazy, shy, low confidence to meet and talk to outsiders, lack of confidence to tackle challenges... The fear of interacting with outsiders meant they remained uninformed, ignorant and unable to progress with new ideas. The vegetable farming project gave them a better understanding of the cash economy. Now they are better equipped to find solutions for their problems.
Every single group concluded they are better off working on the land in their village than working for fixed wages in the city or towns.
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