Projek Picasso: Eco-Tourism Enterprise

Projek Picasso is funded by APPGM-SDG under the Rakan Solusi programme for the P.173 Putatan parliamentary constituency. The active phase ran from August to November 2026, with monitoring continuing until May 2027. It works with three villages on Pulau Gaya: Kg Torong Logong, Kg Lobong and Kg Lok Urai.

The idea is simple to say and hard to do. These villages sit beside a waste problem and beside some of the best scenery in Sabah. The programme turns the second into an income that pays people to keep fixing the first. Rubbish becomes product, product becomes income.

The year began with groundwork. In August we met Sabah Tourism Board and Suruhanjaya Koperasi Malaysia, then helped the villages form a cooperative so that any money earned would have somewhere legitimate to land. In September, nineteen villagers spent two days at a hotel in Kota Kinabalu learning to build a tour package, cost it honestly and market it online. They listed what they already had: hiking, village tours, vegetable gardens, fishing, crab traps, boat building, handicraft, home cooking and traditional dance. Then they learned that a package price has to be built up from the cost of every component, boat and insurance included, not guessed at.

October and November filled the gaps that stop a village business from being taken seriously: a food handling course, a computer course, first aid and CPR certification, and an upcycling workshop. In November the villages signed a memorandum of understanding on community based tourism.

The part that mattered most was on 27 and 28 October. The villagers ran the package themselves, start to finish, on real guests. Registration counter, boat transfer, hilltop hike, village tour, traditional dance, a meal cooked in the village. A nine step itinerary for Kg Torong Logong, written and run by the people who live there.