“By showing up with hope to help others, we believe this is the true purpose of education," says team leader of project HOPE UTP 3.0, Muhamad Iqbal Hafiz, 21, a mechanical engineering undergraduate student at UTP.

Two years ago, a group of UTP students came to learn about a remote village in Sungai Air Perah, Parit, Perak.

“In some parts of the village, they have no access to the grid. When we got there, there was a pressing need for street lights. When the sun sets, the villagers face great difficulties to traverse the village. They were still living in darkness," says Iqbal.

In support of UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), project HOPE UTP 3.0 carried the tagline “Our hope, to yours.". In relation, the team sought to provide means for cost-free lighting and clean river for the Semai Indigenous community.

In an effort to improve their living environment, team HOPE UTP 3.0 continued the good intent initiated by their seniors via the university's social responsibility joint-efforts.

Iqbal says, “Prior to the visit, we carried out a host of fundraising activities to supplement the fund given by Yayasan Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (YUTP). We had started the activities from January where we did a number of bazaar sales—selling 'nasi tomato', beverages and midnight snacks during the study week to come up with enough funds to purchase the solar lights which cost RM300 each."

As a result, the group installed 12 solar powered LED street lights along the village's main commuting route. Interestingly, to install the lights, members of the group worked together with locals to cut off and trim bamboo sticks to mount the lights 2 metres high.

“One may think that providing lights is a small effort, but we hope that this may assist them for a better living environment, quality of life and hopefully, a better future," says Iqbal.

Prior to the installation of the street lights, the group also carried out a community project with the villagers. This time, the group specifically targeted the villagers' young as a means to spread awareness on river cleanliness through games and sports activities.

Iqbal says, “The village has many rivers and ponds. Some of them were murky and badly polluted as they rear a variety of fishes. In fact, we worked in collaboration with Jabatan Pengairan dan Saliran (JPS) to check regarding the cleanliness of the water there."

According to Iqbal, the village kids had a whale of a time tossing mud balls into the river. He says, “There's only one school there. During the activity, we taught the kids how to make mud balls and how good bacteria can help clean their rivers and ponds."

In addition, the group also carried out a goods giving activity at the village. Iqbal says, “We also reached out to the destitute in the village. There was this 70 year old man who's a cripple living alone. While we were there, we took the time to visit him and handed some basic essentials to aid his daily living."

All in all, the programme touched 700 villagers of the Semai ethnic group. Indeed, this is another prime example of UTP's profound career connected learning and industry collaboration. From the work we do, we foster long-term relationships with our global social-impact partners to prepare our students, people and researchers as global citizens.

As a leading university in engineering, science and technology, our graduates are driven to exceed their professional objectives and contribute towards overcoming capability deficit across all sectors and industries.​

Published on 10 August 2020