Gerald (standing, third left) shares a light moment with some of the students at the dinner. Also seen is Easter (standing, second right).

KUCHING (March 14): The Ministry of Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development (MYSED) will hold its first-ever youth tour (Jelajah Belia) to Sabah on July 1 this year.

Its deputy minister Datuk Gerald Rentap Jabu said the purpose of the event is to introduce the youth tour to Sarawak students studying in Sabah.

“There was a request, especially from Sarawak students who study in Sabah and Labuan, to do a mini ‘Lan Berambeh’ in Sabah, since we always do one in Peninsular Malaysia, which they never got to participate in.

“We had discussed this proposal, and we are going to have the youth tour to Sabah on July 1, 2023,” he said when met at the engagement dinner hosted by the ministry for Sarawak students studying in Sabah at a hotel here Sunday.

He added that the youth tour is in collaboration with Sabah Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBSS) and the Sabah Youth Council (MBS).

Apart from that, the objective is to visit Sarawak students studying in Sabah, to include them as part of the development of the state, giving them the latest information on the state’s development and to encourage them to participate in the Sarawak Youth Creative Industry Fund (SYCIF), he explained.

“This is a programme especially for the Sarawak students studying in Sabah. I used to join the ‘Lan Berambeh’ in Kuala Lumpur, and such event does not include our students studying in Sabah, they missed out on this.

“We try to go and see them, and find out more details on their social welfare and wellbeing there. In the Peninsular Malaysia, we have Sarawak volunteers looking after our students, in Sabah we do not have and that is why for now, we rely on UMS Sarawak Student Association.

“This dinner tonight is to introduce ourselves and later on to get them to be our working team for our youth tour,” he said and added that the youth sports will kick off this May 13, to Saratok first and other places, then Sabah.

The UMS Sarawak Student Association (PMS) is now led by Easter Entia Nalong.

Rentap also mentioned that the Sarawak students in Sabah must be updated on the state government’s plan to develop the state and wants the students (upon their graduation) to be part of the development plan.

“We want to be inclusive, we want to tell them what our government’s policy is, the plans for the Post Covid-19 Development Strategy (PCDS), the hydrogen and digital economy, and others.

“Upon their graduation, we want them to come back. We have seen a lot of development that have been planned and intensified especially by our Premier. There are opportunities for them to be engineers, economist, we need all these people. We Sarawakians have to look after ourselves, ‘Orang Sarawak jaga Anak Sarawak’,” he said.

Meanwhile, Easter said the Sarawak government’s effort in approaching Sarawak students in Sabah is the first of its kind.

“We are very grateful for these efforts made by the ministry. We thought that we have been forgotten. This programme by MYSED is an opportunity for us to have effective engagement with the state government. We look forward to this engagement,” she said.

The dinner Sunday was attended by about 40 students from Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and UiTM Sabah.

According to Rentap, after Sabah, MYSED will be visiting Sarawak students in Johor.