Live & Learn

With schools set to reopen soon, how can we do it safely? On today's episode in our series on school reopenings, Dr Khor Swee Kheng, an independent health policies specialist, and Professor Dr Sanjay Rampal, and epidemiologist and public health specialist, join us to tackle those difficult questions of how we can reopen schools safely amidst rising infection and higher deaths amongst children, and to openly discuss the sorts of trade-offs we face as a society, in deciding on school reopenings. This series is done in collaboration with Buka Sekolah Kami! a coalition of teachers, parents, educational institutions, medical professionals and grassroots organizations, who believe that the cost of school closures greatly outweigh the benefits. They are advocating for policy makers to prioritize the reopening of schools on a national level, and the need for a decentralised solution, and an end to blanket policies.

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The U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, in collaboration with Biji-biji Initiative and Me.reka, is back this year to ignite new ideas and innovations in civic engagement through YSEALI (Young South-East Asian Leaders Initiative) Boot Camp 2021: Sparking Digital Action - Sabah and Sarawak Edition. The camp will be held on October 4th 2021. 

On the show with us today, to discuss everything about this camp are some of the brains behind this programme -- Navin Janak Binwani, partner at Biji-biji initiative AND Syed Rusydie, Co-Founder and Director, HAUS KCH.

Image credit: mereka.my

Pertubuhan Pembangunan Harapan Selangor (or HOPE as they’re more commonly referred to) was founded in 2005 with a mission to help improve the lives of underprivileged communities. On today’s show, we catch up with the co-founder of HOPE Selangor, Prema Arasan to talk about some of the Covid-19 struggles faced by communities living in estates, and some of the work HOPE Selangor has been doing to help.

Image credit: hopeselangor.org

 Two weeks ago, the Health Minister YB Khairy Jamaluddin said that while the number of COVID-19 deaths remains high, especially in the Klang Valley, he expects that it will come down in the coming weeks, as the high number is due to the backlog of reported deaths. However, with the number of deaths reported daily still in the hundreds, how do we make sense of these numbers and trends that are presented by the Ministry of Health? What do they tell us about the trajectory of the pandemic in Malaysia? Here to break it down for us is infectious diseases physician, Datuk Dr Christopher Lee. 

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We’re nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic now and we’ve seen many things unfold. One of which is how challenging it has been to manage the vaccination process for non-citizen communities. On the security end of things we’ve seen authorities conduct detentions of undocumented migrants during the lockdowns amid heightened border controls. But on the health end of the spectrum, we’ve seen efforts to coordinate vaccinations for the migrant community through industry employers, or through walk-ins. However, some challenges still remain up until today in the process of getting these groups vaccinated. We speak to Adrian Pereira, Executive Director of the North-South Initiative, Dr Tharani Loganathan, public health specialist from Universiti Malaya, and New Su Shern, founder and president of Project Liber8 to find out more.

Since early June 2021, the team behind the FreedomFilmFest (FFF) have been releasing a specially curated Freedom film playlist every weekend - dubbed ‘Weekend Watch with FreedomFilmFest' - on their YouTube channel. This month, the playlist is dedicated to speaking up about censorship in film, music and arts, and the given theme is 'Merdekakan Minda Rakyat'. This weekend, you'll be able to catch the film An Online Citizen, a documentary about Singapore's alternative news portal The Online Citizen, and the man behind it, Terry Xu. Joining us to discuss the film is Dr Thum Ping Tjin, the Managing Director of independent media outlet, New Naratif, who produced the film.

Image credit: Freedom Film Fest

In conjunction with Malaysia Day tomorrow, we’re joined by two young activists from East Malaysia to discuss how far Sabah & Sarawak have come since the formation of the Malaysian federation in 1963 and what they’re looking forward to next.

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Only two countries in the world - Tajikistan and Turkmenistan - have made COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for all adults. But many other countries have also made vaccinations mandatory for some people, such as healthcare workers, nursing home staff, or employees working in high-risk jobs. Here in Malaysia, we’re seeing more discussions about mandatory vaccinations, especially after the Human Resources Minister M Saravanan said that employers may mandate their employees to get vaccinated, and the Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin also encourages sectoral mandates if they aren’t against the law. But how should employers, or even policymakers, come to make that decision? At what point, can vaccine mandates be considered? We discuss with lawyer and academician Munita Kaur.

On the 7th of September Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Ahmad Marzuk Shaary claimed that the government plans to draft four new syariah laws, including the Control and Restriction on the Propagation of Non-Muslim Religions Bill. This news immediately received backlash from some quarters of the Malaysians, particularly on social media. However, in response to the statement by Ahmad Marzuk Shaary, De facto Law Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said that none of this has even been brought to the cabinet nor Parliament. Syariah Lawyer, Nizam Bashir joins us to discuss what the Control and Restriction on the Propagation of Non-Muslim Religions Bill is all about and whether it is constitutional.

Image credit: Idris Ahmad Facebook page

It's said that women have borne much of the brunt of the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to UN Women, one in three women experienced physical or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner in prepandemic times. During the pandemic, there has been a dramatic increase of violence against women and girls, particularly of domestic violence, as lockdown measures also saw women with violent partners increasingly isolated from people and resources that could help them. The post-pandemic economic impact has further limited women’s opportunities to escape violent situations. This “Shadow Pandemic”, as defined by UN Women is growing, and here in Malaysia, the Women's Aid Organisation is one of the many CSO's helping women experiencing domestic violence. We catch up with Sumitra Visvanathan, the Executive Director of WAO, to discuss this and also why we must prioritize the eradication of gender-based violence, even in times of austerity.

If you or anyone you know are experiencing domestic violence, call the 24-hour WAO hotline at 03-3000 8858 or SMS/WhatsApp 018-988 8058.