The Azalea Initiative

The Azalea Initiative is a year-long women’s leadership programme designed to equip women from marginalised communities to be changemakers. This growth-focused programme develops their capacity and readiness to address issues in their community through life-sharing, knowledge-building, impact-making and networking. Women make up 48.9% of the total population in Malaysia. However, there are still limited opportunities for women from marginalised communities, especially refugees, to develop their leadership skills and play a changemaker role. Empowering women to become changemakers can lead to a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable society that benefits the community around them.

Refugee women are uniquely positioned to address community issues and play a vital role in building stronger, more resilient societies. Refugee women have firsthand experience of the challenges and needs within their communities. Having lived through displacement, conflict, and adversity, they possess deep insights into the issues affecting their fellow refugees and host communities. Not only that, they have a strong connection to their cultural heritage and traditions, allowing them to navigate cultural nuances and sensitivities within their communities. Their cultural competence facilitates effective communication, trust-building, and collaboration with community members, ensuring that interventions are culturally appropriate and respectful.

Enggang & Pipit

“Enggang sama enggang, pipit sama pipit, baru boleh terbang sama”. The idiom roughly translates to “Hornbills fly with hornbills, sparrows fly with sparrows.” It means only people of the same class should be associated with each other. This initiative seeks to disrupt this norm.

Every community that lives in Malaysia is subjected to being stereotyped. This is especially true for marginalised groups which leads to disempowering single-story narratives. These narratives are disseminated through social and cultural institutions, mass media, and social networks and significantly influence public opinion. People are afraid of what they do not know and very quickly choose to believe what is shared by their social circles. By stereotyping the entire community based on their identities, individuals from communities such as the urban poor, indigenous, refugees, and stateless often found themselves in a highly disadvantageous position of being marginalised socially, economically and politically, which often leads to limited access to their rights.

Enggang & Pipit seeks to mobilise communities in Malaysia to challenge their existing perceptions of self and others by providing a platform to dismantle stereotypes and prejudices that create divides among people. We do this through the sharing of stories and exploring the stereotypes associated with their identities.

The Azalea Initiative

The Azalea Initiative is a year-long women’s leadership programme designed to equip women from marginalised communities to be changemakers. This growth-focused programme develops their capacity and readiness to address issues in their community through life-sharing, knowledge-building, impact-making and networking. Women make up 48.9% of the total population in Malaysia. However, there are still limited opportunities for women from marginalised communities, especially refugees, to develop their leadership skills and play a changemaker role. Empowering women to become changemakers can lead to a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable society that benefits the community around them.

Refugee women are uniquely positioned to address community issues and play a vital role in building stronger, more resilient societies. Refugee women have firsthand experience of the challenges and needs within their communities. Having lived through displacement, conflict, and adversity, they possess deep insights into the issues affecting their fellow refugees and host communities. Not only that, they have a strong connection to their cultural heritage and traditions, allowing them to navigate cultural nuances and sensitivities within their communities. Their cultural competence facilitates effective communication, trust-building, and collaboration with community members, ensuring that interventions are culturally appropriate and respectful.

Enggang & Pipit

“Enggang sama enggang, pipit sama pipit, baru boleh terbang sama”. The idiom roughly translates to “Hornbills fly with hornbills, sparrows fly with sparrows.” It means only people of the same class should be associated with each other. This initiative seeks to disrupt this norm.

Every community that lives in Malaysia is subjected to being stereotyped. This is especially true for marginalised groups which leads to disempowering single-story narratives. These narratives are disseminated through social and cultural institutions, mass media, and social networks and significantly influence public opinion. People are afraid of what they do not know and very quickly choose to believe what is shared by their social circles. By stereotyping the entire community based on their identities, individuals from communities such as the urban poor, indigenous, refugees, and stateless often found themselves in a highly disadvantageous position of being marginalised socially, economically and politically, which often leads to limited access to their rights.

Enggang & Pipit seeks to mobilise communities in Malaysia to challenge their existing perceptions of self and others by providing a platform to dismantle stereotypes and prejudices that create divides among people. We do this through the sharing of stories and exploring the stereotypes associated with their identities.