KUCHING (March 10): This year’s state-level Gawai Dayak celebration will be hosted by the Orang Ulu community, said Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.

According to him, the hosting job is on rotational basis, with the Bidayuh hosting it last year and the Iban community, the year before.

Uggah also announced Deputy Minister in Premier’s Department Datuk Gerawat Gala as the appointed organising committee chairman for this year’s event.

“Datuk Gerawat will form his working committee and propose the dates for the various programmes.

“This is a golden opportunity for the Orang Ulu community to showcase their culture and traditions,” said Uggah, the state-level Gawai Dayak 2025 celebration chairman, after a meeting today.

On last year’s hosting by the Bidayuh community, Uggah described it as ‘a great success’.

“Lots of improvements were witnessed compared to the earlier celebrations, and I thank everyone involved including those from the public and private sectors for their hard work and contributions.

“The spirit of working together among the Bidayuh, Iban and the Orang Ulu communities have been inspiring. It proves that we can achieve a lot with our unity and the ability to work together.

“I hope this spirit would continue to manifest itself in all that we do together in the years ahead, and not just confined to the Gawai Dayak celebration. We must sit down, discuss, consult one another, and contribute the best that we can so that we can move forward to achieve more progress.”

Meanwhile, Minister of Education, Innovation and Talent Development Dato Sri Roland Sagah Wee Inn, who was last year’s working committee chairman, said there were five core programmes successfully done in last year’s state-level Gawai Dayak celebration.

“They were the Gawai Dayak Bazaar, the carnival, the cultural parade, the Gawai Dayak state dinner, and launch of the Gawai tourism brochure and coffee-table book—the last of which was the first time that anything like it was ever done.

“We hope to launch it before this year’s Gawai celebration, which is about two months away,” said Sagah.

Deputy Minister of Transport Dato Henry Jinep, who was the chairman of the Gawai Bazar programme, said sales of RM2.4 million were recorded throughout the 11 days that it was held.

“We had the participation of 174 stalls selling food, handicrafts and other items.”

On the cultural parade, its organising chairman Opar assemblyman Billy Sujang said a total of 111 contingents had taken part, despite the heavy rain that came in the later part.

He said the participants also included the Kadazan Dusun community, who had sent a contingent to the parade.