FOUNDER

Mr. Janes was born of original Dusun Tobilung parents. Since his childhood days, he already loved the Tobilung culture. He wanted to preserve it. Hence, he passionately founded Walai Tobilung. It all began in 2010 when he realized that it is time to build a cultural site to preserve Tobilung’s culture so that it could be passed on to the future generations. He thought, if nothing was done to preserve it, in the next ten to twenty years the Tobilung culture will disappear from the face of the Earth. He is also active in rural community based tourism development and actively involved and holds positions in the Kota Marudu Tourism Action Council and the Kota Marudu Tourism Development Association.

There's quite a story behind the founding of Walai Tobilung. At first, Walai Tobilung was not intended to be commercialized. The local community, led by Mr. Janes and his parents took the initiative to build traditional houses at a newly attained land lot at Kg. Minansad. Those traditional houses were meant to be temporary. As time goes by, the houses started to suffer damages here and there. Even so, Mr. Janes couldn't afford to let them be demolished. He thought to himself, "Why don't we make a proper cultural site out of this?", and the rest is history.

Walai Tobiulung was rated as a basic social enterprise in 2003 by The Ministry of Entrepreneurship and cooperative Malaysia. It was located at Kampung Minansad, Kota Marudu, which is 5 km from Langkon Township towards Simpang Mengayau (Tip of Borneo). It will take you 2 hours from Kota Kinabalu to reach here and 1 1/2 hour from Kundasang, if you take the Marak Parak route.