CLINIQUE’s HAPPY DAY with Meals on Wheels &

Gerai OA’s visit to Tompoq Topoh Mah Meri Women’s

Workshop at Kg Sg Bumbun on P. Carey

Event’s Date: DEC 16 2011 Friday

Location Location : Kampung Orang Asli Sungai Bumbun, Pulau Carey, 42960 Kuala Langat, Selangor

Note: Just off Port Klang, lies Carey Island. Named after Valentine Carey, a former British civil service officer in Malaya, the large island is well-known for two things—

unbeatable seafood and its indiginous tribe, the Mah Meri, famous for their handmade crafts like wooden masks and woven items.

Project initiatives

In conjuction with CLINIQUE’s HAPPY DAY, CLINIQUE is working together with

NGO Ti-Ratana Penchala Community Centre’s Meals on Wheels

to distribute food, kindness and happy smiles to Tompoq Topoh Mah Meri Women’s

Workshop at Kg Sg Bumbun on P. Carey

Ti-Ratana Penchala Community Centre21, Jalan Penchala46000 Petaling JayaSelangorMalaysiaTel : +603-7784 9002Fax : +603 -7784 8002

E-Mail : trccpenchala@gmail.comWeb : http://www.ti-ratana-penchala.com.myhttp://mahasadhu.blogspot.com/http://trccpenchala.blogspot.com/

Recipients Background of Tompoq TopohTompok Topoh is a Mah Meri women’s workshop held in Kampung Orang AsliSungai Bumbun, in Pulau Carey, not far from Klang, about an hour’s drive from Kuala Lumpur. The workshops began in 2003 at the initiative of a Mah Meri woman, Gendoi Samah, who was alarmed by a decline in interest in pandanus weaving in 2000. This was due to the loss of available raw materials (ie. the disappearance of clumps of pandanus) largely as a result of land clearance. With the help of her daughter, Gendoi Samah gathered her extended family and friends and worked to revive the weaving of betel pouches, mats and baskets, traditionally made by Mah Meri women for personal and everyday use as well as to supplement their families’ income.

With the support of several individuals, non-governmental organisations and the Malaysian Handicraft Development Corporation, they managed to improve the weaving process as well as their weaving and dyeing skills. They also replanted almost one thousand pandanus seedlings with grants from the Regional Network for Indigenous Peoples (RNIP) and Ford Motor Company.Today Tompoq Topoh has about twenty members, all women, from Sungai Bumbun village in Pulau Carey . Most of them are active weavers who sell their craft as their main or supplementary income

The Tompoq Tompoh weavers

We are Mah Meri, an indigenous ethnic minority group in Peninsula Malaysia. The term Mah Meri translates into ‘people of the forest’. Our ancestors used to roam the coastal areas of southern Peninsula Malaysia, but we call Carey Island (an estuarine island at the mouth of Langat River) our home now.

Our village, Kampung Sungai Bumbon, is named after Sungai Bumbon, one of the small rivers that flow through the village. Our present-day 320 acres village is made up of more than 500 persons, consisting of more than 83 families. Each family has their own plots of inherited land, cultivated with fruit trees that their grandparents or great grandparents planted.

Tompoq Tompoh itself is made up of 32 members (and still growing) with ages ranging from 9 yrs of age to 80 yrs of age. Some of the women in the group are also single mothers. Our earnings from the sale of handicrafts are only supplementary to our family’s income. Our married women members spend a lot of time at their woodcarving husband’s workshop to help sandpaper and polish sculptures and masks made from nyireh batu(Xylocarpus moluccensis), a mangrove tree species.

Our weaving initiative is to empower our womenfolk to be independent. Furthermore, the demand for our handicrafts provides economic benefit to us while helping to preserve our cultural heritage.

Despite the pull of modern conveniences, the orang asli of Carey Island have managed to preserve their heritage and traditions, in no small part

due to the burgeoning tourist industry.

Tompoq Topoh is the Mah Meri women's first weave initiative on the island. It means “the start of a collaborative effort”, from the Mah Meri word tompoq “the start of a weave” and topoh, which means a woven

mat pattern. The art of pandanus weaving (anyaman hake) was slowing dying out until 2003, when Gendoi Samah Seman (an 80-year-old Carey

Island woman) revived weaving of bujam (betel pouches), mats and baskets

Majority of the women weavers are single mothers and some are supporting poor large family.

“I used to earn RM45 from making brooms from discarded palm fronds and now I earn around RM200 from weaving. It may not be much but I’m proud to continue our traditional art,” says one weaver Rosiah

anak Kengkeng, 38.

The Tompoq Tompoh Dancers

The faces of the Mah Meri Community

80 year old Gendoi samah

The happy faces of the kids back from school

Another picture of their house.

The humble abode of Mah Meri,Orang Asli community