"Pilihanraya apa?" (What election?)
"Undi apa?" (What vote?)
"Saya tidak minat". (I’m not interested)

Last December, I volunteered with ROSE for a new voters registration exercise in Sarikei. ROSE set up a booth at a youth conference, a big gathering of about 1,500 people.

We managed to register 44 new voters in two days, most of which were under the age of 30. Honestly, I expected way more than 44, only to realize that rural work is hard work. This is my first experience in a rural area for voter registration, and the effort needed to secure one new voter is 10 times the effort as in the city. As compared to city folks who thank us for our effort in bringing the voters registration counter to them (so that they need not go to the post office to do it), I struggled with talking to these rural young people (partly due to the Iban language barrier) and had to explain to them what pilihanraya is.

ROSE volunteers at BERSIH 4 Kuching

The urgent call for volunteers to man the ROSE voter registration booth at BERSIH 4 Kuching went out at 11pm on the 25^th of August. On that same night, we had 1 response. By the next morning we had 2, then 5, then 7 and finally we had 12. Out of the 15 who responded, at least half were first-time volunteers at events of this nature. One volunteer came all the way from Miri and answered our call for volunteers. Despite the trepidation that things could get ugly, despite the heat, despite the discomfort, ROSE is proud that with the help of these passionate Sarawakians, we managed to register 100 voters in 3 hours!

The ROSE voter registration booth at Song Kheng Hai Hawker Center, BERSIH 4 Kuching

The following is a reflection from one of our first-time ROSE volunteers, Li Ern. Her first contact with ROSE was through the Beyond Kliktivism forum organised way back in May. (If you missed our event, the videos are up here!)