PACOS and AHDC sign collaboration agreement

KOTA KINABALU – A collaboration agreement was signed between the Archdiocese Human Development Commission (AHDC) and Partners of Community Organizations in Sabah (PACOS) Trust on 29 Mar 2014.

PACOS is a community-based organization dedicated towards supporting indigenous communities in Sabah, and sees itself as on organization that strives to empower indigenous communities through systematic building and strengthening of community organizations, which can act collectively on its own.  PACOS also sees the need to support networking among organizations done through the establishment of formal and informal networks between community organizations at different levels.

This partnership (PACOS/AHDC) is forged with the aim at working closely on migrants issues to help foster unity in the community, as well as to promote peace and justice in the society in support of local governament efforts for a safer Sabah for all.

Both parties have agreed to cooperate in an initial development of a mechanism to coordinate and consolidate efforts, together with various organizations towards migrant care, including sharing of information and referral serices network, focusing on community security and other basic rights.

Earlier on, a community dialog had been organized by the PACOS Trust, in collaboration with the Parish Human Development Committee (PHDC) of St Paul Parish, Dontizidon, on how to address security issues within the community.  The parish was selected to take up a pilot project as an implementation of the AHDC/PACOS collaboration program in which it was agreed that this pilot project should focus on the five villages under the care of St Paul Parish, namely, Kg Nosoob Baru, Kg Koidupan, Kg Kobusak, Kg Mogoputi and Kg Nagasiba.

The signing of the collaboration agreement was in fact part of a one-day workshop on Rights in Migration, organized by PACOS.  The purpose of the workshop was to create a greater awareness among the participants about issues of migration and the rights on migration, with an overview of the challenges and needs of the migrants in Sabah.  It hoped to establish good networking among NGOs, government agencies and the society (local/migrants) at the grassroot level. – AHDC, Sr Anita James