Dato Sri Michael Manyin Jawong
TEBEDU (Dec 13): The award-winning duo from SK Temong, Tebedu will be rewarded with incentives to recognise their achievement of winning an award at the recent Alvorado International Schools Film Festival in Brazil.
Education, Science and Technological Research Minister Datuk Amar Michael Manyin Jawong said he would personally meet the two students to congratulate them and announce the incentives.
“I will go and meet them, and we will top up the amount won by them as their incentive. Their achievement was not small feat. It is an award won at the global stage, and a significant achievement for the Bidayuh community,” he said.
Manyin, who is also Tebedu assemblyman, made these remarks during a meet the people session at Kampung Tema Saan, Tebedu today.
The two SK Temong students, Macgres Sawet and Nabiatul Dania Zulfiqa Mohd Zulfadhli, were declared winners of the ‘Best Film By Popular Jury’ in the primary school category at the film festival also known as ‘Festival de Cinema Escola de Alvorada’ (FECEA).
They won through their short animation film called ‘Batuh Bijanji’ (Promise Stones in Bidayuh) which tells the story of two childhood friends, Bibi and Sarah.
FECEA, a festival that recognises audiovisual works at the school level, was held online and the voting was held from Nov 17 to 28 at FECEA RS YouTube channel.
The award presentation was also held online via ‘Google Meet’ on Nov 28, and the trophy was sent by post.
Both Macgres and Nabiatul took 10 days to produce the film using the rotoscoping technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame-by-frame, to produce realistic action.
The project was started last year after they attended a Digital Storytelling Animation workshop organised by the State Education Technology Division, Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research, and Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA).
Later, when speaking to reporters Manyin said SK Temong had won an award at a statewide competition held by his ministry two years ago.
He said the school received an additional RM10,000 that year for their achievement to top up to the RM2,000 prize money won at that competition.
“SK Temong is considered a big school in N21 Tebedu constituency with nearly 200 students. I have been paying a lot of attention to SK Temong, and the school recently received nine computers with one printer.
“We are also thinking of upgrading SK Temong by building one more block. They have done very well,” he said.
Meanwhile, Manyin during the event at Tema Saan also launched the village’s recently upgraded St Paul Church building and he also joined them for Sunday Mass.
Manyin in his speech also called on parents especially in Tebedu constituency to encourage their children to be involved in church services and activities because religion plays a big part in their character building.
Also present at the event were a political secretary to the chief minister Dr Simon Sinang Bada, Tebedu district officer Joseph Liaw and community leaders.