Monday, 20 October 2008
KOMAS wins Europe's Prestigious Grudtvig Award
PETALING JAYA: KOMAS, a Malaysian human rights organization won Europe's Prestigious Grundtvig Award for its programme on “Education for Non-discrimination” which focuses on issues of race and ethnicity”. KOMAS was selected to be this year’s winner in the “Outside of Europe” category.
Fifteen-year old KOMAS is a non-governmental organization using popular education to promote human rights issues in Malaysia. In 2005, KOMAS developed the project on Ethnicity and non-discrimination supported by the Konrad Adenaur Stiftung (KAS).
EAEA or the European Association for the Education of Adults strives to improve and promote formal, non-formal and informal adult education for all. The Grundtvig Award was first launched in 2003 to recognize the most outstanding products or projects done in the field of adult learning. This year’s theme was on “intercultural learning” with a central concept to view cultural diversity as an important strength that bridges ethnic and cultural differences.
KOMAS Board of Director and advisor to the award winning programme, Mr. Jerald Joseph was invited to the EAEA General Assembly in Dublin, Ireland to receive the award today.
“We wanted to create an open and safe space where Malaysians can freely discuss and express issues of race and ethnicity” explained Jerald Joseph. “We also wanted to locate these expressions within a human rights framework as the reference point for fighting racism and discrimination,” he added.
Jerald explained that there was a severe need for such efforts to be carried out in multiethnic Malaysia especially to respond to the country’s socio-political landscape which was marked by race-based politics since independence. Furthermore Malaysia lacked open forums for meaningful discussions on ethnicity which is often deemed as “sensitive” topics.
The unique approach used by KOMAS to spread awareness on racism and non-discrimination is one of the programme’s strong points and its effectiveness over the last 3 years. The programme adopts a highly participatory approach and using creative tools like group dynamics, drama forms, audio-visual tools, and graphics in its training processes and discussion on the subject.
For instance the programme has developed different training modules and designs which were used by a pool of local facilitators trained in the programme. It has also produced three collections of short videos entitled “The Bangsa Malaysia Series” which are used as resource tools for education and discussions on various topics of racism in Malaysia.
The programme also has a wide reach and has been replicated in different states in Malaysia. Its training workshops has been attended by a range of people including people from NGOs, student groups, youth groups, faith-based organizations, indigenous people’s community organizations and even individuals working in the corporate sector in Malaysia.
"Winning the Grundtvig Award is definitely a strong boost to the KOMAS team and our efforts to promote genuine understanding and tolerance in Malaysia,” said Tan Jo Hann founder and current member of the Board of Director of KOMAS.
“Having our work recognised by peers is not only a positive reaffirmation but also a strong impetus to our mission to advocate for inter-cultural understanding and awareness among the different races in Malaysia," said Tan who is currently a local councilor of Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ)
KOMAS receives the award while its partners receive certificates in recognition for its effort to promote effective adult learning. The winning project will be publicised via EAEA website (http://www.eaea.org) and sent to a mailing list of 130 organisations in 41 European countries.
For further information, please contact:
Arul Prakkash,
Coordinator, Pusat KOMAS
HP: 019-272 1035
Leong Mei Yee
Programme Officer, Pusat KOMAS
HP: 016-219 0041
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