26/02/2026
On the 9th February 2026, Monday—As a fellow graduate from the Dayung Young Heritage Leaders Programme (Dayung Warisan), I have gathered so much exposure and experience, and it has been priceless for me since then. I and my teammate Messie Mena have joined forces and come up with a photo-zine encapsulating the folklore we sourced from our dear family members as well as our fellow friends (Pravithiya Chermie).
It has been such an honor to go back into my roots as someone that has been brought up as a Gen Z, where we are more inherently exposed to speaking and experiencing our lives differently with the modern times. Learning back our roots as respective Iban and Bidayuh descents, I and my teammate work together in piecing the pieces of folklores and displaying the wonder through the Dayak motives with a contemporary twist.
As team members and Dayung Warisan participants, we are blessed to join hands and tap into the identity and the cultural richness of our own heritage. The joy we get from the photo-zine-making process we cannot express with much better words other than sheer joy and sincerity in relearning our roots and tradition as Iban and Bidayuh women.
Through this initiative, our 1st Edition Zine (Ruai Dayung Collective): Travelogue & Storykeepers of the Dayak People, we have managed to put it together into a handmade zine with thread binding, and each story is shown on the zine pages. The project encountered several challenges, including limited funding and material resources, as well as the need to strike a balance between cultural sensitivity and public documentation. Ensuring that indigenous stories were shared respectfully while remaining accessible to a wider audience required careful consideration throughout the process.
Despite the challenges that we were met with, we have successfully presented the showcase of our very first zine! I want to acknowledge and express my gratitude towards, Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri (the Women, Family, and Community Development Minister), and program director Steffany Raymond Landong for the opportunities.
In that way, we aim to foresee a ruai for the dayung (a space for women) to express their artistic endeavors and outcomes, collaboratively amongst us in the Sarawak landscape.
