Jai Jericho bin Omar is 18 years old and lives in Kampung Bangau-Bangau, a sprawling community of tightly packed wooden stilt huts over the sea on the outskirts of the town of Semporna, Malaysia. Located on the east coast of Sabah, Kampung Bangau-Bangau is mostly home to marginalized Indigenous Peoples, including the Bajau Laut, which Jai belongs to.
The Bajau Laut are a sea-faring group that traditionally lived across the Sulu Sea on small wooden boats called lepa, getting everything they needed from the ocean. Due to the creation of maritime borders that disregarded the distribution of ethnic groups, as well as other modern developments that clashed with their nomadic way of life, new generations of Bajau Laut like Jai have been forced to settle on land, not recognized as citizens by any country.
The denial of citizenship means stateless people like the Bajau Laut are often unable to access other basic rights and services, such as state education, water, healthcare, and legal employment, leaving them at higher risk of exploitation, discrimination and abuse. There are around 4.4 million stateless people in the world, according to estimates by the UNHCR, but the actual figure is believed to be much higher.
As a young Bajau Laut, Jai’s opportunity to access education came through the alternative learning centre called Sekolah Alternatif Semporna. Set up in Kampung Bangau-Bangau in 2018 by the youth-led movement Borneo Komrad, this alternative education project seeks to improve literacy rates among marginalized youth aged 10-22 years old, as well as to foster the development of other skills, including arts and interpersonal skills. Borneo Komrad has also set up additional alternative learning centres around the state of Sabah.
A Bajau girl in Malaysian Borneo. Photo: Claudio Sieber
A Deep Connection to the Sea
The Bajau Laut’s traditional way of life is so intrinsically linked to the ocean that, over time, they have developed special adaptations for fishing, such as enhanced underwater vision and enlarged spleens that allow them to hold their breaths for longer while diving. Despite this inherent connection to the sea, Borneo Komrad found that younger generations in Kampung Bangau-Bangau lacked basic knowledge about the environment in which they live.
Semporna is the jumping-off point for important marine biodiversity hotspots, including the Tun Sakaran Marine Park and the islands of Mabul and Sipadan. These world-class diving destinations attract thousands of travellers every year, highlighting the stark contrast between tourist resorts and impoverished Bajau Laut communities like Kampung Bangau-Bangau, which suffer from many environmental issues, particularly solid waste management.
Declining fish stocks are another serious problem for these stateless people, who cannot access the formal job market and have to rely entirely on fishing for their livelihoods. Unable to compete with large industrial fishing boats, many small-scale fishers in this area have resorted to dynamite and cyanide to increase their catches. But these stop-gap measures come at a very high cost: the destruction of local coral reefs and a subsequent decline in fish stocks, not to mention the injuries and deaths caused by the dangerous homemade explosives.
In 2023, Borneo Komrad received a grant from the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP), implemented by United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to launch an environmental education project aimed at raising awareness and preparing students at Sekolah Alternatif Semporna to address the various issues affecting their community.