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| A photo report posted by Philippine Sabah Claim Forum member PManalo; caption reads: "repost from REACT Phil. June 25, 2013 @ 8:05 pm 116 deportees arrived @ Bongao Port, karamihan sa kanila ay menor de edad pa kasama na rin isang 2 kalahating taong gulang na bata at dalawa sa menor de edad na deportees nagkakaroon na ng deperensya sa pagiisip dahil ikunulong daw sila ng 100 days sa tawau sabah malaysia." Also posted on Sabah Claim Society community page. |
While our government is showing sympathy to our kababayans who are convicted of a crime in a foreign country and is taking drastic action to help save their lives, our Muslim families in Sabah are still suffering from the atrocities of Malaysian troops and police authorities without overt sympathy from the tenants of Malacanang.
Many had been incarcerated and starved before deportation; many have died or been killed and will never see the shores of Sulu; others have left Sabah on their own to escape death. There is a vast number of Suluk "deportees" from their own Sabah homeland who need help. The forced and unjust "deportation" in the most inhuman circumastances has not stopped. Those who have luckily reached the shores of Sulu are in need of food and medicine. The sick, the wounded, the hungry need help.
Raayat Bangsa Suluk, a charity group by the Kiram family of Sulu, has set up a group on Facebook. The group has just put up a Paypal account through which someone - especially located overseas, who wishes to help can send donation online. If you wish to donate in kind or in person, you can also go to their physical office address.
Here's their PayPal Account: kiramn@yahoo.com
To donate locally and in person, here's a "how to do it" list from Fatima Shehan Kiram Idjirani of the Raayat Bangsa Suluk:
"If someone asks for our Org's address so they can send donations in kind, please refer them to 1) Address: Suite 2306 Cityland 10 Tower 2, H.V. Dela Costa Street corner Street Makati City 1226; and 2) please go to the Files Tab of this group page and forward to them the Donation Form. The form is much needed for auditing purposes. Thank you :)"
Anyone interested may also download a form from the group by clicking on the following Facebook link: Raayat Bangsa Suluk
Another organisation through which help to our Suluks families may be coursed is One World Institute, Inc., a non-profit organisation, headed by one of our compatriots, Yolanda Ortega Stern, who has been doing this silently for years now. This organization has provided livelihood programs for our people. If you have a Facebook account, please visit their Facebook page and "LIKE" it to know more. You can get more information from the page how to help. Link: One World InstitutePlease visit their Facebook link to view page and "LIKE" it. There's some information about the organization and how it provides a livelihood program for the people there. Our compatriot, Yolanda Ortega Stern heads this organization and has been doing charitable projects silently without fanfare. But the organisation deserves to be noticed and those who can help may do so.
Here's something we have copied and pasted from One World Institute:
One World Institute will be initiating a new pilot project in Sulu in Coconut Processing to help our OWI community earn money for their daily bread. They will grate and press the coconuts to sell the "sapal" and the cold squeezed virgin coconut oil. Filipino innovative technology for low cost production in an area that suffers lack of electricity, will be utilized.
We will also be helping TechnoteBambooPhil promote their Bamboo project by encouraging growing bamboo wherever we can. They now have a nursery in Kidapawan, Cotabato. Rimmon Paren has trained and is ready. The OWI community will initially join in providing the bamboo to them. Seedlings are now for sale.
To our partners, you can be an investor/partner or donate Php 55 K for a coconut processing machine. Or you can donate bamboo seedlings purchased in Kidapawan.
OWI will provide the logistics and market for all the products, using our Seaweed Farm Associations as the model. The community owns the project, OWI manages, markets, and they get all the income.
OWI does not charge administrative fees from any donations. What you give is what they get.
Our Seaweed Farms continue to thrive. Hundreds of families are subsisting today on the income they derive from selling their dried seaweeds. More could be done for them if we had a processing plant for secondary processing. We will be experimenting with using the same machine to chop seaweed as well.
OWI, AAI, and IPI will join again in the sharing of hypertensive medicines and books to hard hit areas where libraries perished during Pablo. Dengue is on the rise again.
So join our Coconut Army, the Seaweed Navy and the Bamboo Brigade. Plant bamboo.
Thank you to all our volunteers and partners as we change gears from wheelchair distribution to concentrate our scarce resources on old and new projects that help our communities put food on the table. We have listened to the OWI communities. "We cannot eat books" is a desperate commentary on the hard times.
Join us one and all, in the projects that fill the heart. The difference is YOU.
For more, click here.NOTE BENE: We, the Admins of the Philippine Sabah Claim Forum, its Defenders community page and its sister sites on FB and on the worldwide web, would like to emphasize, that we are not in any manner connected to the above organisations and are in no way responsible for these organizations. We have posted the above sites on the Philippine Sabah Claim Forum and its sister sites on Facebook and in the Group's blogs in response to enquiries by some members on how they could help. The posts on how to help Suluks in dire need following their forced and unjustified deportation from Sabah are a PUBLIC SERVICE. Thank you.
~~ Administrators
- Philippine Sabah Claim Forum
- Defenders of the Philippine Sabah & Spratly Claims
- Sabah Claim Society
