For those who join the Youth Engaged in Social Innovation, Service, Education and Entrepreneurship (YES I SEE) project, there are many reasons behind the ideas they come up with.For 25-year-old Alice Kiing Bee Bee, it was her colleague who inspired her to come up with the idea to come up with a better system to help disabled people in the Kapit Division.

“My colleague is physically disabled, and it was actually because of her that I thought of starting this project,” said Kiing.

Kiing’s idea, through her group called Youth Special CARE is to set up a centre for disabled people in Kapit. Her group members are Jainah John, Jeffery Ichang, Duri Saoh and Well Pajan, who range in age from 19 to 25.

“We want to establish a centre like this to assist people with physical or mental disabilities in Kapit Division,” said Kiing.

Due to the rather limited road network in the division, she pointed out that people with disabilities often find it hard to contact the Welfare Department for aid and assistance.

“Apart from the challenge of getting assistance, especially for those living far away from Kapit town, they are also usually unsure of who to contact to obtain aid.

“We hope that by setting up our centre through Youth Special CARE, we would be able to help disabled people, no matter where they are or where they live in Kapit,” she said.

The centre hopes to provide various types of training for the disabled, especially with skills such as handicraft-making.

Apart from that, the centre aims to provide services such as job searches for disabled people and assisting them to register for identification documents.

One of the main activities for Youth Special CARE is also to go to the ground to actively search for and identify people with disabilities throughout the Kapit Division.

Since attending the YES I SEE workshop in Mukah last March, the group has been busy coming up with their proposal or business plan, which they will soon have to present to the adjudicators from Angkatan Zaman Mansang (Azam) Sarawak, the organisers of the YES I SEE project.

With the help of their mentor, who has been assigned to guide them on their journey through the YES I SEE project, Youth Special CARE’s members have been working on where their centre would be situated, the number of staff needed, and the work that would need to be done to make it a success.

As with the other groups that have been featured in this column, Youth Special CARE has also faced some challenges in trying to turn their idea into reality.

“It has been a real challenge for us to visit the people we are trying to help most — the disabled. There are also certain sensitivities, which my group members and I have to always be wary of, when we interact with people with disabilities,” said Kiing.

When it comes to support and encouragement, she revealed that family and friends have been extremely helpful and supportive. She was especially appreciative of the support given by the Kapit Resident’s Office and Sarawak State Sports Council, Kapit Division.

Youth Special CARE members believe that if their idea gets off the ground, it would be able to provide a service that would be able to help many more people in dire need of such services.

“We hope that in three to five years, with a centre run by Youth Special CARE in place, we imagine that we would be able to touch the lives of those who need our help the most,” said Kiing.

As for her colleague, who gave the inspiration for the project in the first place, Kiing explained that her encouragement and suggestions have continued to drive Youth Special CARE to strive for the success of their project.

YOUTH SPECIAL CARE (KAPIT)