KUCHING, 8th January 2021 – The Penan Project is crowned the Spotlight Silver Award 2020 by the Spotlight Documentary Film Awards. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, the award is dedicated to promote experienced and new documentary filmmakers through a unique and important international film competition.
The Penan Project tells a story of a group of volunteers that travels to Ulu Baram to treat curable illnesses towards the nomadic indigenous groups in Borneo – The Penan. As the adults and children alike have little access to basic health care, they are slowly adapting to the aid given to them.
This award serves as a monumental moment as through this documentary, TVS alongside project SHINE is able to reach the goal of their project to travel to the remote Penan villages spread around Ulu Baram River to provide medical assistance, health examinations and awareness. This 7-days project targets 100 Penan households – equivalent to 300-500 Penan from multiple villages with and without access to primary medical healthcare.
“Being able to follow project SHINE to document their efforts to reach out to the Penan in gathering their settlement’s location, teaching them hygienic practices and compiling their medical health results is a wonderful experience. With the medical results gathered from the Penan, we hope the authority can set policy and direction to find a sustainable way to elevate medical equity in Ulu Baram” said Lau Ung Ing, Director of The Penan Project.
Co-Founder of Penan Women Project, Ann Wong mentioned “Penan Women Project would like to take this opportunity to thank our donors, our volunteers and everyone who were involved behind the scene and worked on Project Shine. We hope we will get continual support and expand further this outreach in the future.”
The shooting of this featured documentary is undertaken by Sarawak Media Group (SMG) with the aim to share untold stories to a larger audience and for future generations to come. The full documentary can be viewed on TVS’ YouTube channel on www.youtube.com/TVSTVMY .

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