A drama presentation by Indian Malaysian women and youth

Friedrich Naumann Foundation in partnership with ERA Consumer Malaysia and 10 Community Centres staged a drama and cultural performance to highlight the predicament of Indian Malaysians.

The event was held in Taiping, Malaysia and presided over by Dato G. Palanivel, Deputy Minister to the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development as the Guest of Honour.

The drama performance by the various groups from 10 Community Centres in Malaysia presented the story of hardship and challenges the Indian Malaysian minority face in their daily lives. Most of the recurring theme centred around the situation where a large number of people in the communities lack access to education, proper employment and other benefits. The root cause goes back to the fact that the people despite being Malaysians by birth, lack the proper identification and documents to confirm their legal status as citizens.

Most Indian Malaysians have their ceremonial marriages in temples, and are oblivious to the fact that they must also register these marriages legally. As a result they are not able to register the births of their children, creating a vicious cycle of lack of knowledge, education and proper employment. All these factors inhibit the community from exercising any right as a citizen, often leaving them powerless and unable to sustain a living. This of course lead to many other social ills including petty and organised crimes, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic and other forms of violence.

As part of the European Union funded project to empower minority Malaysian Indian women 10 Centres have been set up across West Malaysia. The Centres aim to equip women in the communities with skills and confidence so that they can raise their socio-economic status and in turn contribute to better economic standing of the household. Over the long run this will re-instate a social support structure through self-help mechanism

Women and youths who have benefited from skills and rights awareness programmes came together and used drama as a tool to express themselves and at the same time share their stories to the audience. The drama performance is a good illustration of how the work of the Community Centres has, in a matter of 2 years, been able to build on confidence level of people. At the start of the project in 2003 the same women were intimidated to even talk to people outside their immediate circle of acquaintance, yet today they are able to speak out to a crowd of more than 1,000 and demand for a change, both from within and outside the community, to improve their situation.

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