Handicraft… is among one of the most common items sold in a few of the shops

The Long Bedian community of Ulu Baram comprises of several ethnic groups, such as, Kayan, Kelabit, Kenyah, Morek, and Punan.

The Kayans are the biggest group in the village making up 95% of the population, while the Kelabits consists about 3.9%. The remaining 1.1% of the total population in Long Bedian comprises of the Kenyahs, Moreks and Punans.

When Kayan people exhausted their land in the Apau Kayan area in Kalimantan, they migrated north into Sarawak where they settled in their present locations - midway on the Baram River, the upper Rejang River and the lower Tubau River.

Kayan women are distinguishable by tattoos on their hands and their legs. It is considered a form of feminine beauty. The tattooing is carried out when a girl is about ten to twelve years old.

Men and women used to perforate their earlobes. The men wear leopard’s teeth through the perforation and the women wear brass or other types of material through the earlobes in order to extend them.

As with all Orang Ulu tribes, the Kayan are great craftsmen. They are well-known for their boat making skills, which they carve from a single block of belian tree - the toughest tropical hardwoods.

The project

The “Centralised Shop” project of the Ulu Baram folks has brought accolade and prestige to the Kelabit and Kayan communities of Long Bedian.

The project is a success story which has brought wealth and has helped to put the Long Bedian folks in the spotlight numerous times. On 6 May 2002, the Long Bedian community came top in the National Inspiring Village Award through the Centralised Shop project held in Bangi, Selangor and took home a prize money of RM15,000.00, a trophy, and a certificate.

Recently, the Rural and Regional Development Ministry again adjudged the project as the nation’s best in its Socio-economic Sector of the Inspiring Village Award category and awarded it the top prize of RM50,000, reaffirming its commercial potential that has helped to shift the villagers’ traditional farming activities to one that is entrepreneur-related.

The number of shops rose from just 8 shops in 1980 to 37 shops in 2004 and there is talk that the community was looking into the possibility of increasing the number of shophouses to 50 units by year 2006 which is testimony to the fact that there is a growing potential in commercial undertakings by the folks of Long Bedian. With the Centralised Shop project, the Ulu Baram community of Long Bedian are increasingly moving along the path of development as preached by the government.

The Centralised Shop project consisted of two phases, with Phase One costing RM70,000, and Phase Two took up about RM310,000. Despite the increase in the amount of capital involved in the construction of the Second Phase of the project, investment returns from the project came mostly from rentals of the shoplots.

This project has given opportunity to the locals to do business in various fields like electrical and electronics, supplying the building trade, groceries, and other retail ventures to meet the needs of the surrounding community in the area.

Changes

When interviewed, Village headman Laing Jok said that the Centralised Shop project which started twenty years ago, had managed to bring about socio-economic changes to the 1,600 villagers of Long Bedian.

This is what Village headman Laing Jok had to say about the success of the project. “Not only do they ‘abandon’ their farms and jungles, but they are now living in more comfortable terraced houses like those found in the towns, and that the single-storey low-cost terraced houses were built on the initiative of the villagers themselves.” Long Bedian is located in Baram town in the Miri division. There are two ways to reach Long Bedian, either by an Express Boat or by Land Cruiser/Four-wheel drives.

By sampan, the journey will take more than 10 hours whereas by 4 wheel drive vehicle on the timber road, the journey will take 3 hours. Thus, the timber road has become the main factor attributed to the economic development of Long Bedian.

Due to the rapid development of Long Bedian, it stands to become a focus area of socio-economic activities in this region. This progress is set to continue given that the development council is actively maintaining and managing the rapid development of Long Bedian.

	Hardware … another one of the must-have shops in Long Bedian where the locals can get their supplies for building materials and other industrial requirements
Creative… Inei Soon Tailor is one of the tailoring shops in the centralised shop project which is popular with customers

Spurring economic growth

Just like any other economic activities around, the Centralised Shop project inadvertently gave rise to other forms of investments for the folks of Long Bedian. For example, not less that thirty enterprising locals are now successfully venturing into the transportation industry by virtue of them owning 4 wheel-drive vehicles, and this has been brought about by the project which is capable of spurring further economic growth in the area.

Village headman Laing Jok also said that as Long Bedian has the potential to become a tourist attraction, a resort Tenyok Rimba Community Resort has been built. The project is one of the numerous projects of the Rural Growth Centres of the government.

Since the establishment of the Tenyok Rimba Community Resort where culture, nature, and adventure are its strongest selling points by far, many of the community folks have ventured into the arena of tourism which is another income-generating industry for the Long Bedian community of Ulu Baram.

What other factors are there in Long Bedian that contribute to the success of this far flung community? Village headman Laing Jok said with pride that such transformation in the way the villagers are carrying out their economic activities were mainly due to a large extent to the villagers’ farsightedness and strong determination to change their lives so as to be continuously competitive and at par with the rest of Sarawakians in Malaysia.

It cannot be dismissed however, that large-scale economic activities like plantation and timber-related businesses had also helped to spur the villagers into embarking on the transformation of their livelihood.