Up until early September, only about half of the Orang Asli community nationwide had been vaccinated.
The problem of access is exacerbated by vaccine-hesitancy, especially among the elderly, due to a lack of credible information about the vaccines.
Realising this, several young women among the Orang Asli community are working hard to increase the number of those vaccinated.
Yaliyana Lenab, a young woman of the Semelai Tribe in Negeri Sembilan, is spearheading her village’s vaccination efforts by convincing villagers to register for the programme.
“At first, it was challenging. They refused to listen and register for the vaccination. It’s not that they are anti-vaxxers, they were just unsure about the vaccine. For example, some were scared to be vaccinated because they have medical conditions.
Yaliyana said her team would do home visits to get villagers to register their names for vaccination.
“Some villagers scold us and ask us not to come to their house again. However, I don’t give up. My friends and I continue to convince them of the importance of the vaccination,” she told FMT.
She also uses social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok to raise awareness about vaccination.
“I record the vaccination process and post it on social media. This is to show to the villagers that there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She noted that only a small number of people in her village registered for the vaccination initially but the numbers increased gradually.
To date, 98% of the village’s adult population have been fully vaccinated, she said.
Other young Orang Asli women in various tribes nationwide are also doing similar activities in their villages.
Diana Tan, of Rompin, Pahang, spoke of the collaborative efforts between youths in her village and the Orang Asli development department.
“We collect villagers’ names and submit them to Jakoa for the vaccination outreach programme in our village,” she told FMT.
She believes that youths can play a crucial role in getting people, especially the Orang Asli, to sign up for Covid-19 vaccination.
Recently, Cameron Highlands MP Ramli Mohd Nor, the country’s first Orang Asli elected representative, said only 57% of the community or 82,555 had been inoculated against Covid-19. There are about 144,180 Orang Asli in West Malaysia.
He proposed that the government empower Orang Asli community leaders or Tok Batin to help vaccinate those in the community who did not have proper identification documents.
“There are a handful who are without proper identification documents and so they are unable to get vaccinated,” he said.