Utar launches audio project for stateless M'sians
Voices of Resilience: A Stateless Malaysians Audio Project (Smap) was launched by Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar) yesterday.
Utar assistant professor Loo Hong Chuang told Malaysiakini that the idea for the project came from the founder of the rights group Stateless.my, Wong Yew Lee, a former stateless child who obtained his citizenship two years ago.
“He (Wong) discussed a lot...
Voices of Resilience: A Stateless Malaysians Audio Project (Smap) was launched by Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar) yesterday.
Utar assistant professor Loo Hong Chuang told Malaysiakini that the idea for the project came from the founder of the rights group Stateless.my, Wong Yew Lee, a former stateless child who obtained his citizenship two years ago.
“He (Wong) discussed a lot about stateless youths in the country. They don’t get much coverage in the media.
“Also, media coverage is always about sad circumstances, which is true, but what about them living a dignified life? Many of them, for example, find ways to get jobs to support their families.
“Some finish their diplomas and go to work so that their siblings can go to school. These stories are not told in the media,” said Loo (above, far left).
This is a project funded by SEA Junction and is jointly produced by broadcasting students from Utar and Stateless.my.
Loo emphasised that the audio project’s main target audience is stateless individuals or people who want to know more.
“The aim is for the audio project to be available, maybe forever. Hopefully, people who come across it will find it useful.
“This is why the project is very diverse in terms of language.
“It’s not our place to tell a stateless person if they should stay on and fight, but we hope that they, after listening to our podcast, can decide on their own whether they should continue fighting.”
Besides Loo and Wong, also at the forum were former BFM producer Juosie Loo and Maalini Ramalo, the director for social protection of NGO Development of Human Resources for Rural Areas (DHRRA) Malaysia.
10 episodes, 10 stateless stories
There are 10 episodes in this podcast series and six are now on Spotify. The remaining episodes will be released later this month.
According to Loo, five students have joined the project as producers and editors.
He hosted the first episode while Wong presented the remaining nine.
“Wong has the credentials to talk to stateless persons since he has experienced statelessness himself,” said the academic.
Meanwhile, Wong shared that his biggest challenge was to get stateless people to talk about their stories, saying he often needed to spend time convincing the interviewees to reveal their identities.
“They are afraid that their citizenship application will be denied if the minister hears their story, or if we talk bad about him.”
Wong emphasised that the project is to allow stateless individuals find hope when they listen to the stories of others like them.
