Roy Basilias
Friday, 25th June 2010

The first of its kind, Training of the Trainers Programme (T.O.T), mastermind of REACH’s CSI Committee commenced on the 22nd of May 2010. This programme is made possible with the sponsorship from the CIMB Foundation, wanting to lend a hand in educating the community. “What’s wrong with our consumed water now?” That’s a question commonly asked by the local community.

It’s simple H20. Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. This substance better known as water, is the most essential element, next to air, to our survival. Water truly is everywhere, still most take it for granted. REACH however, has decided to come up with a programme to educate the local community about the significance of quality drinking water.

Being the first of a series of training programmes that will be conducted through out the year, this programme is aimed to train teachers from various schools about the health of our rivers and how to monitor it. Once trained, the teachers will be able to conduct the CSI programme for their school children, instilling awareness about the importance of water quality in our daily life.

The programme was participated by the teachers from Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Tanah Rata, Sekolah Kebangsaan Convent, Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC) Brinchang and Sekolah Kebangsaan Brinchang and SJKC Kea Farm. The programme started with a briefing by Dr. Liau at 9 am. Eager teachers were waiting at the REACH office as early as 8.30 am, displaying their keen interest in the programme.

The initial briefing/lecture was an introduction to REACH, how the organization moved amongst the community and their persistent “breathing down the necks” of the authorities whenever there’s an unauthorized or illegal operation that could destroy the environment. This was followed by an unpleasant and displeasing presentation of the severe damage and pollution taking place in the highlands. Even more arousing was the fact that it had such severe impact on our daily life and consumed water quality.

The presentation was made interesting with slides and photos of vast beauty of the highlands as well as the undeniable clandestine methods of polluting and poaching of our streams and montane forest.  A short tea break in between the lectures surely helped the participants ask more questions and helped them get to know the down to earth Dr. Liau better.

Next was a briefing on the Cameron Stream Investigation (CSI) programme. This is where the participants started to have many questions and were intrigued by the programme itself and how simple water study is made. The speaker, Dr. Liau was always open for questions and as always, mesmerized and made the participants feel free with him with his uncanny ability to communicate with people.

The third part of the briefing was on the use of macro invertebrates as bio indicators. Here, one could see the eerie and ominous expression on the faces of the teachers. This was mostly because the photos of the macro invertebrates were magnified and made the living bio indicators look frightful. Again, as complex as it may sound, the briefing was made simple and understandable by the well versed speaker.

Approximately around 12.30 pm, the programme adjourned for lunch. All teachers, volunteers and the speaker met up at a local restaurant and had a good meal together and shared a deeper insight on their interest towards the programme thus far.
 

The now vibrant participants gathered at the Sg. Pauh Camping Site for the 2nd half of the T.O.T Programme at 2 pm. Here, participants were taught how to analyze the stream using simple physical, biological and chemical parameters. This is notably the most interesting part of the programme. They were divided into groups and guided by the volunteers present. The teachers were very spirited and ever ready to carry out the task given to them. They were astonished with the specimens caught and were focused on identifying those macro invertebrates. The teachers were amazed by the amount of living organisms in the stream and were screaming to the volunteers to help identify them. You could see that they were brought back to the days when they were kids, playing in a nice unpolluted stream. “I caught a big one!!” one teacher screamed. “What is it?”

The productive evening was summed up with a light tea break and a post mortem of the CSI activity as well as handing of the water testing kits to each school. It was indeed a spellbinding day, coupled with the outstanding display of zippy participation by the teachers.  The 1st T.O.T Programme was certainly a successful one with every minute well spent in a wholesome programme.

-Water is important to the mechanics of the human body. The body cannot work without it, just as a car cannot run without fuel-

Attendants List:

DOE Officer
Nor Razzaman Hamzah

SK Tanah Rata
Norhidayu Bt Hamzah
Rosidawati Bt Arshad
Rosniza Zainal Azman
Suhaimi Mamat
Khairy B. Hj Abd Wahab
M. Shahir B Noor Hashim
Mohd Hasnor B. Thuri

SJKC Kea Farm
Chick Kam Loong

Yamaha Music School Cameron Highlands
Chew Lai Ling   

SJKC Brinchang
Che Amnah Yaacob
Saidaful Akmar Zakaria
Ling Nyiik Hieh
Lee Yoke Fong
Tan Pooi Lai

SK Brinchang
Kassim B Ibrahim
Azis B Ismail

SK Convent
Azlili Murad
Anis Amera

Committee Member of REACH
Amran Khan
Dilip Martin

Volunteers
Chai Sze Yung
Mielen
Roy Basilas
Melody Woon