As part of its Social and Political Awareness program, Blessed Sacrament Parish collaborated with a civil society group to conduct a P.A.C.A. training session at its community hall, last week.

Facilitators from Rise Of Sarawak Efforts (R.O.S.E.), were on hand to speak on topics to raise awareness of the rights of citizens and voters.

In view of the impending General Election, the talk was targeted at championing Free and Fair Elections.

ROSE’s Vision is to see ordinary Sarawakians participate and engage in the democratic process necessary in nation building.

ROSE’s Mission is to create awareness and empower voters and citizens on their democratic rights, and for cleaner and fairer elections.

P.A.C.A. is the acronym for Polling Agents and Counting Agents. These are the people who are authorized by our elections laws to serve in the polling stations on election day. Their role is to protect the secrecy of the vote; ensure that balloting is done according to the rules, and they also ensure that only those who are eligible or who are registered, get to vote.

PACA role-play

The training session was more interesting than I had expected. It was interactive and fun. Role-plays were set up to enable participants to get a hands-on feel of the election process as well as their roles and duties as a PACA.

R.O.S.E. was represented by Ann Teo, Geoffrey Tang, Simon Siah and Francis Thoo and several other volunteers.

Photos by: Stephanie Chua / Jason Kho