MALAYSIANS KINI When Ong BK went to Borneo as an election observer back in 2011 during the Sarawak state elections, he had been running an organic farm in Penang for the last decade.

But during his time in Borneo, he said he got the chance to meet with a lot of people in the interiors.

“That experience led us to meet a lot of people in the interior, where they expressed their wish to get basic amenities... which are normally either absent or very far away.

“The contact in Borneo actually caused me to think about getting into this project to bring basic amenities to rural areas,” Ong said in a phone interview with Malaysiakini.

The project in question is the Lightup Borneo, a civil society initiative started by Ong in 2011, right after the Sarawak state elections.

The main objective of Lightup Borneo, which is based in Kota Kinabalu, is to provide access to lighting and basic electricity supply to the interiors, he said.

They do this, he added, by building micro- and pico-hydro generators as well as a pioneering floating hydro generator for villages in rural areas.

So far, Lightup Borneo has completed over 20 projects, he said, with most of them being in Sarawak, then Sabah and even a few in rural areas in West Malaysia.

The project is mostly run by volunteers, with each project costing around RM4,000 to RM5,000 per kilowatt.

Not only that, Ong said, they are also supported mainly by donations.

While speaking to him, it becomes clear that Ong has become an ardent champion of the rural cause as he explained in great detail the huge divide between rural and urban.

At one point, he also cited the victory of the United States’ president-elect Donald Trump as a sign of rural disillusionment against what is perceived as an unfair advantage to the urban areas.

This is his story, in his own words:

THE CONVENTIONAL WAY TO THINK about getting these (basic necessities) would be through our democratic system.

(But) we cannot ignore the fact that after 50 years since the formation of Malaysia, they (the rural areas) are not getting enough of those basic services.

If we were to walk away and say, “You wait for the process to turn its wheels slowly and deliver you the services,” that would be a grave injustice to the people there, who are citizens just like the rest of us.

YOU ARE RIGHT TO SAY IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE STATE, but equally staring us in our eyes is that for half a century, these indigenous people have been around and they are not getting those (basic necessities).

If we continue to tell them, “Look, the proper way to get it is to get the government’s attention, then we would be condemning them to not getting these services for a long time.