PENANG, 15 August 2020 – A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), University of Westminster and Middlesex University were recently awarded the Newton Fund Impact Scheme (NFIS) of the British Council and the Malaysian Industry Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) for a project entitled “Piloting Health Interventions to Advance the Sexual and Reproductive Health of Women Migrant Workers in Malaysia”.  

This international grant awards a total amount of £133,161 (about RM732,385), where USM will receive £73,902 (about RM406,461).

Researchers from USM are Professor Dr. Noraida Endut and Dr. Lai Wan Teng of the Centre for Research on Women and Gender (KANITA) and Dr. Suziana Mat Yasin of the School of Social Sciences.  

This project which will run for 18 months, beginning May 2020 to October 2021, also recruits a USM postgraduate student, Kelvin Ying of the School of Health Sciences, as Research Officer.  

Academic partners from the United Kingdom (UK) are Dr. Lilian Miles of the Westminster Business School, University of Westminster and Associate Professor Dr. Tim Freeman of the Department of Management Leadership and Organisation, Middlesex University.  

Lilian is the UK Principal Investigator (PI) while Noraida, who is also the Director of KANITA, is the Malaysian PI for this project.  

This award is a special grant offered to prior awardees of the Newton Fund schemes.  

Both Noraida and Lilian had collaborated in a previous British Council Newton Fund Researcher Links Workshop grant for a project entitled “Advancing Maternity Protection in Malaysia: Meeting Social Welfare, Business Needs and Contributing to Economic Development”.

The NFIS project also builds upon another project awarded to Noraida, Lilian, Lai and Suziana, by the United Nations Gender Theme Group (UNGTG), entitled “Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights of Women Migrant Workers in Malaysia: NGO’s Capacity Building and Women’s Empowerment”.  

The UNGTG project came up with a toolkit of health interventions to be adopted by workplace management to ensure good sexual and reproductive health (SRH) amongst female migrant workers.  

According to Noraida, the NFIS project aims to pilot the implementation of selected health interventions from the toolkit in two multinational manufacturing companies in Penang with a substantial population of female migrant workers.  

The USM project team members and CSO-collaborators meeting management representatives of a selected multinational company to discuss implementation of project

In doing this, she and her co-researchers are collaborating with three civil society organisations (CSOs): Penang Family Health Development Association (FHDA), Reproductive Rights Advocacy Alliance (RRAMM) and Tenaganita.

Noraida said, “This project provides a unique opportunity for researchers in gender studies and social sciences to engage with the CSOs and industry in improving the wellbeing of female employees in the industry, in this case, migrant workers.”

“An impactful outcome advocated by this project is an employment policy and practice that addresses two important Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are the SDG 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment and SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth,” Noraida added.

Text & Photo: Professor Dr. Noraida Endut/Proofreading: Tan Ewe Hoe