This is one of the significant first steps in the effort to register the stateless people in Malaysia, as we fully recognise the restrictions and challenges of the people without any legal identification in Malaysia.
In 2023, we registered more than 130 Indonesian students with their embassy through an educational collaboration called the Sanggar Bimbingan project. These students are now at least holding an Indonesian student identification, and this project will also allow them to continue their study in Indonesia should one day their families be ready to return to their homeland.
Besides the Sanggar Bimbingan project, we also assist in registering and sending off individuals and families who wish to return to Indonesia due to the many difficulties they faced with their lives in Malaysia, especially with health and medical issues, family conflict and children’s future.
On the other side of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, many of Filipino descent for generations have been living there without a solid hope for the future due to the lack of legal identity. With no other options available, they can only imagine the possibility of their future after continuing to live one day at a time.
This year, we also collaborated with the Philippines embassy to register Filipino children born in Malaysia to be recognised as their citizens. With this registration, we continued to advocate and encourage especially families with children to return to the Philippines for their children’s education and future development. However, this process takes time and effort. In 2023, we only managed to support one of our local partners in submitting the registration of two families as of now.
In the coming year, we will set this project as one of the main focus of our work.
