Tuyang Initiative – Helping indigenous community on Borneo

The Tuyang Initiative was co-founded by Juvita Tatan Wan and her father John Wan Usang to foster the inclusive development and promotion of Dayak cultural heritage talents, products and services.

June Rubis at a rice field in Sarawak © June Rubis

WHEN Malaysian June Rubis was an undergraduate at a Canadian university, she was told by a professor that she could never do orangutan field research because she was a woman, of the wrong nationality – even though orangutans are found in Malaysia – and that she would never have enough capital to do it.