On 12 September, OUM President/Vice-Chancellor, Prof Dr Ahmad Izanee Awang, flagged off an expedition team of staff on a special mission: to reach the peak of Malaysia’s highest mountain to mark OUM’s 25th anniversary.
Scaling the 4,095m mountain is no easy feat, especially during the rainy season. For Finance & Procurement executive Jamillah Ibrahim, it was a big challenge even though she had reached the peak twice before, in 1997 and 2014. The mother of two began training a month earlier, walking on a treadmill and climbing the stairs to her 11th-floor office at Menara OUM in Kelana Jaya.
Spurred on by the university management and others who came out in full force to wish them well, the team set off around 10 am. They made strong progress, reaching the Laban Rata checkpoint by 3:50 pm. After a night’s rest in the resthouse, the team began the final push at 2:30 am on 13 September.
The track was rocky and demanded great effort. Not everyone made it; climbers who failed to reach the Sayat-Sayat checkpoint by 5:30 am had to turn back. But the majority persevered. The first person to reach the summit was Shah Alam Learning Centre executive Mohd Husin Abd Rahman. Jamillah became the first female from the team to step onto the peak.
“I like to work fast,” Jamillah said, “So when I started climbing, I wanted to reach the top quickly, too. More importantly, I wanted to fulfil the management’s wish for us to reach the peak.”
Her spirit was admirable, especially considering a frightening encounter she had the night before. She and a colleague were asleep in their room when Jamillah awoke to the sound of her roommate’s bags being ransacked. Thinking it was her roommate, she was confused when she heard her shift in bed. The mystery deepened when the noise seemed to come closer, as if the intruder was going through Jamillah’s belongings next.
Gathering her courage, Jamillah switched on the room light to find… no one. In the morning, her roommate found a food package torn open and a bag of medicines missing, only to be found much later by the resthouse staff.
Mystery aside, the expedition was an incredible experience, challenging the team to battle tough conditions to honour OUM’s silver jubilee. Well done, team!
Beyond this mountain feat, OUM’s anniversary celebrations included a Public Lecture Series and Gala Dinner in August, and large-scale CSR tree-planting programmes in Sabah and Sarawak. A Fun Run has also been scheduled for next month.
