Leptospirosis or Bakteria Kencing Tikus

Recently, we understand there was some uneasiness among parents and of course participants who have called up the School requesting explanation on the impact of the disease Leptospirosis, if any, on our activities in the outdoor.

Let us try to alleviate some of the worries, which are understandable, by giving the facts below.

Background – Leptospirosis or locally known as “bakteria kencing tikus” (bacteria in rat’s urine) is the hot topic nowadays since there have been ever increasing reports from 263 cases in 2004 to 1,418 cases in 2009.

Actually this disease was first identified in this country as early as 1925 and it mainly affected military personnel and farmers. It became newsworthy when in early July 2010, there was a case of six (6) deaths as a result of these people being exposed to this infectious disease during a search party of a drowning incident at Lubuk Yu recreational forest, near Maran in the state of Pahang. There were similar fatalities in Sarawak (two cases in July 2010) and one case in Kedah (after he was believed to have gone for a dip at Puncak Janing recreation area in Kuala Nerang).

Definition – Leptospirosis is caused by exposure to several types of Leptospiro bacteria, which can be found in fresh water that has been contaminated by animal urine, normally in warmer climate.

Facts

- A person can only be affected by direct exposure to the bacteria physically entering the bloodstream either through drinking or through broken skin such as lesion or through the eyes.

- It is NOT contagious that is, it will not be passed from human to human.

- It is transmitted by urine of an infected animal and is contagious as long as it is still moist. Although rats and mice are primary hosts (incidentally, they are also carrier of many other diseases), a wide range of other mammals including dogs, deer, rabbits, cows, sheep and certain marine mammals are able to carry and transmit the disease as secondary hosts.

- The risk is mainly in stagnant freshwater pools and soil contaminated by urine of the infected animals. Note that the risk in saltwater is virtually zero.

For more information, please refer to www.leptospirosis.org

How does this affect activities conducted at Outward Bound Malaysia in Lumut?

- Our water activity is ONLY sea-based (note that the bacteria cannot survive in seawater) such as kayaking, rafting and sailing on the Whaler. We do not carry out any activities in land-based pools/ponds,rivers or lakes.

- The participants and Instructors carry their own water supply to the camping sites involved in the expedition.

- We are very strict about personal hygiene procedures to be carried out by everybody when going camping.

- We have requested the Medical authorities to carry out water and soil tests of all of our camping sites and so far the results are negative. In addition, there is no official report of any cases of Leptospirosis in the Lumut and Manjung area.

Notwithstanding the above actions, we are reviewing some of the land activities to eliminate the risk of any exposure to this disease.

Rest assured that Outward Bound Malaysia always placed the safety of our participants and Instructors as the highest priority and we will take immediate action as and when necessary.

We are in the mood of being grateful especially during the month of Ramadan where there is a lot of time for soul searching or as a friend told me, it is actually caffeine deficiency!

Outward Bound Malaysia would not have been where we are now if not for the following:

Three “Mat Sallehs” – (Tan Sri Dato) Mubin Shepard (then British Adviser to Negri Sembilan), G.S. Walker (then District Officer of Lumut) and E.L. Marsh of Barlow & Co who did the initial survey looking for a “sea school” somewhere in Lumut in 1952.

Another “Mat Salleh” – (Tun Sir) General Gerald Templer (then the High Commisioner of Malaya) made it happened by “pushing” for Rm 250,000 to set up the first sea-school Outward Bound centre outside the United Kingdom. With that, the Outward Bound Trust of Malaya (at that time, now known as the Outward Bound Trust of Malaysia) was incorporated on 30th October 1954 as a company limited by guarantee.

Past Presidents – Mr R.B. Carey (1955-56), Sir Douglas Waring (1956-1957), Tun Hj Abdul Razak Hussein (1957-1975), Tun Hussein Onn (1975-1981), Tan Sri Tengku Razaliegh Hamzah (1981-1989), DYTM Raja Muda Perak Darul Ridzuan Raja Dr. Nazrin Shah ibni Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin (1989-2002), Dato Seri Ismail Shahuddin (2002 till now).

Past Wardens/ School Directors – Major (Rtd) G.W.Fuller (1955-1964), Mr. J.W.Tucker (1964-1971), Mr. K.L.Kuan (1971-1978), Captain (Rtd) Bakhtiar Haji Nawawi (1978-1980), Lt.Col. (Rtd) J.K.Cheng (1980-1987), Mr. V.A.Allan (1988-1994), Major (Rtd) Steven Pan (1995-1998), Mr. Ariffin Mohamed Yusof (2000-2000) and First Admiral (Rtd) Thirucandran (2001-2009).

Past members of the Council, and currently the serving members of the Council are Dato Seri Ismail Shahudin (President), Dato Ismail Hutson (Vice-President), Mr. James Bush, Dato Ham Ah Nee, Dato Mohd Ariff Shafie, Dato Seri Azlanii Talaat Husain, Mr.Azlan Shahrim, Dato Ng Tieh Chuan, Dato Dr. Mohd Hashim Ahmad Tajudin and Mr.Mohd Ross Mohd Din.

The Government of Malaysia (previously Malaya) – for granting us tax exemption status under the Sub-section 44 (6) Income Tax Act 1967 (previously effective 1st January 1954 under Section 33 (2) c of the Income Tax Ordinance 1947).

The Perak State Government – for giving us the original site at Teluk Muroh, which was taken over by the Royal Malaysian Navy in 1977, and compensated by giving another plot of land of almost 11 acres near Adam’s Bluff towards Teluk Batik where we are currently situated.

The Royal Malaysian Navy, in 2009, has given a motorized Whaler to the Perak State Government which is maintained by the Outward Bound Malaysia for training purposes.

Recently, we have been granted the use of the Forest Reserve next to the School and the whole area of 1,917.82 acres (76.13 hectares) has been classified for “tujuan hutan pelajaran kawasan Outward Bound Malaysia, Lumut” (jungle training ground for Outward Bound Malaysia, Lumut).

Sponsors – for contributing towards the cost of building of the facilities, equipment and sea-crafts amounting to more than Rm5,000,000.

Past Instructors – for being part of the “crew” in providing the services of instructing and facilitating the courses and most important ensuring the safety of our participants.

Clients – Thank you to more than 70,000 people for supporting us the last fifty-five (55) years.

Being a financially independent non-governmental body and also a non-profit organization, we can only offer our clients the opportunity to experience the “magic” of an Outward Bound course!

Currently, there is a need for a new Safety “mother” boat (estimated cost around Rm500,000) to replace the 14-year old “Putera Philip” (Prince Philip) and also a rather ambitious idea of applying for the Pulau Sembilan area (consisting of nine Islands, Pulau Agas, Pulau Payong, Pulau Nipis, Pulau Rumbia, Pulau Lalang, Pulau Saga, Pulau Buluh, Black Rock and White Rock), which historically being used by us as our sailing and kayaking area, to be classified as a Marine Training area for Outward Bound Malaysia.

It may be a dream to get the above two requests but earlier on those three “Mat Sallehs” also dreamt of setting up an Outward Bound School in this country more than 58 years ago and they make it happened……….so can we!

Challenge by Choice Vs Force into Challenge?

The practice of any Outward Bound course is always “challenge by choice” where the participant is allowed the right to decide whether he wants to continue or decides to take a break. It may appear to be too democratic but surprisingly from our experience of conducting more than 30,000 student days annually, not many actually refuse to do any activity.
Usually is the perceived fear of going out of the comfort zone that triggers the decision not to carry on but with gradual exposure, explanation and most important; patience, the participant will continue with the course!
We have two simple rules at Outward Bound Malaysia if anybody refuses to carry on with a course:

a) We will send the participant to the General Hospital for immediate check-up if there are complaints of any ailments from them, or sometimes when we suspect that he/she needs medical attention as observed by our Instructors.

b) The participant still have the choice “not to go for the challenge” even after clearance from the Medical doctor. Our only resort is to inform the sponsors and seek their advice.From experience, we know that it is rare but usually the person will regret his/her actions later in life.

A “force into Challenge” is more of a “boot camp” or a commando-training school where the objective is to submit the participants to rigorous humiliating physical activities in order to survive in a warfare environment. Notwithstanding the objective, this method is needed to expose the participants (usually armed forces personnel) to conditions which can be even worse in real-life situation.

“Fortunately” Outward Bound Malaysia only wants you to experience the “magic” of the Outward Bound spirit when you leave our ground!

What is the magic? For over 55 years, our students leave any course happy, exhilarated and self confident.

Come over and join us to experience that “magic”!

With a blink of an eye, it is already coming to the end of April 2010 and it is surprising how time passes very fast when you are too busy!
For your information, the Council has just approved a new management structure where there are three sections reporting to the Executive Director, namely Operations, Marketing and Support Services. It was already stated in the earlier report that we have recognized that all of our senior Instructors (now will be known as Senior Field Trainers) have certain skills (mostly hidden!) which makes them unique and it will add value to the activities carried out at Outward Bound Malaysia.
These Senior Field Trainers are invaluable to the smooth operations of our School and they are Hairunizam “Wak”, Syafri Daud and Mohd Yazid.
It is with pleasure to announce that the following personnel have been appointed to hold the various positions.
Mohd Nazri Hassan – Director of Operations, Ahya Khairi Ibrahim – Base Officer, Karen Loh – Safety Officer, Mohd Jamadil Zainol – Programming Officer, Karl Jesse St. John Chandran – Training Officer, Ahmad Mukrim Ibrahim – Marketing Officer and Yusri Awang – Logistics Officer
The core of Instructors will be supporting the Senior Field Trainers in managing the smooth running of all courses.
Of course, the Support service such as Logistics, Finance and Administration, and Human Resource will be there to provide backing to the Operations section.
The beauty of the whole thing is that every one of the above officers can “jump” straight into the Operations section if there is a need to do so. Flexibility and teamwork is the name of the game and as the saying goes “we do what we preach”!

Actually it was the April Fool Day that reminded me to update the OBM blog and just realized that the last update was 15^th February 2010! Naughty boy!

Let me start off by wishing Robert James Savarimuthu, our former Deputy School Director, the best for his future endeavor since he left us on 31^st March 2010 after almost 14 years service with Outward Bound Malaysia, even though there was a short gap of one year in 2003 when he “left” us for one year. He was a loyal and a hard-working employee.

Currently, we have 63 full-time employees consisting of two management staff, thirty-five Instructors and twenty-six support services staff (including six handling sea crafts and the others are Logistics to cover our 12 acres site; and Administration).

After all these years, we recognized that our senior Instructors (now known as Senior Field Trainers) have certain individual skills which they developed themselves through experience and acquired knowledge. These skills included International Standard Swimming Instructors, handling & knowledge of snakes, mountaineering rescue techniques, event management, aerobic & fitness programmes and many other specialized fields. In turn, management has decided to “empower” them to develop and lead special programmes of their own design to be included in the current course modules or a new course. Just watch out on this Blog or the Facebook for any updates of these programmes!

Since the last report, one of the most exciting programmes carried out by us was the “Project Perkasa Remaja” in mid March which is a Youth-at-Risk programme where we had thirty-four motorcycles daredevils or better known as “Mat Rempits” together with a few Police officers as chaperons completed a specially-designed course. This a government-sponsored project led by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia “UKM” School of Psychiatry in collaboration with the Royal Malaysian Police where a five-modules programme is designed to rehabilitate these misunderstood youth to “go back” to normal society. Outward Bound Malaysia is the third module and without doubt the favourite part of their two-month session!

Frankly, Outward Bound brings out the best of everybody and where we discover our true potentials.  After that, it is as the saying goes “You can bring the horse to the drinking trough, but it is up to the horse whether it wants to drink the water!”

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Gong Xei Fa Choy, Gong Xi Huat Zai…it does not matter whether it is in Mandarin, Cantonese or Hokkien, it is Happy Chinese New Year to all our Chinese friends! Hope all of us will have a healthy & prosperous Tiger Year…

Since the last report, we had quite a few visits from clients and clients-to-be such as UKM, Cyberview, MAXIS, Tenby International School, USM & UNIKL. The visit is normally a briefing of the history & track record of OBM, a tour around the School showing all the facilities and followed by a speedboat trip to Teluk Sekadih and Pantai Shawal. If so required, we even go all the way to Pulau Rumbia.

Just to update some of you, Outward Bound Malaysia (Lumut) has a total area of around TWELVE (12) acres consisting of the following assets, TEN wooden hillside dormitories (known as Kinabalu, Camar, Tahan, Ledang, Irau, Korbu, Jerai, Gading, Bubu & Beremban), FIVE units of brick structures (known as SISMA, Maybank, GAMUDA, MALAKOFF & HSBC), Dataran Di-Raja where we have classrooms & stores, Dining Hall, A Medical Centre with sick bays, with the Duty Manager’s and Instructors office situated upstairs, Wooden Male Staff Quarters, Wooden Staff Mess, Multi-purpose Hall, Administration Building, Wooden Bungalow, Boathouse, Surau, and Bosun’s House.
We also have the following training equipment,
1) EIGHTY (80) units of 2-man Kayaks, EIGHTEEN (18) units of “Dancers” kayak & TWELVE (12) units of Canoes,
2) SIX (6) units of Whalers (18-man Sailing boat)
3) THREE (3) units of mother boat (support sea vessels)
4) TWO (2) units of Speed boat (another one on the way!)
5) SEVEN (7) units of Land vehicles (two FWD & five Vans)

We intend to do a Staff Expedition to Gunung Tahan via the Merapoh route in late April 2010. We are also testing a few equipment during that trip. Watch out for the report!

Please register with the OBM FACEBOOK (either Page and/or Group) that you see on the right hand side where we can update daily activities and interactive communications from visitors with download of photographs and reports. Let us see some action of the OB magic!

Enjoy your break!

Please register your particulars online as we are now busy recompiling all data way back to 1954!

Click here.

Ex-bounders! Those of you who have attractive digital photos on your Outward Bound experience, please take note. Share them!

Selected digital photos will be posted on this website.

E-mail your digital photos to admin@outwardbound.my under the title PHOTOS.

Pls find the trained4survival pdf file.
(2.88MB in size, non-broadband, take note)

Courtesy of  ‘Going Places October 2009′
Text & Photo by Rabani HM Ayub