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This paper will discuss the findings of a study that has been conducted to explore the challenges of women with physical disabilities (OKU) in entrepreneurship. The scope of the exploration involves the start-up phase of the business which requires the informant to tell the experience of facing initial challenges in the business. The study was designed using a fully qualitative approach with data collection using the Focus Group Discussion method. The study location involves four Malaysian zones, namely the North, East, Central and South zones. A total of 34 physically disabled women who are traders were selected to be interviewed. The selection of informants was made purposefully by choosing the recipients of the Malaysian Social Welfare Department's launch grant. The thematic analysis carried out shows that there are three main challenges faced by informants during the phase of starting a business, namely: i- lack of access to information, ii- implications of physical disability and iii- dual role challenges. The results of the study give implications to stakeholders' efforts to improve the achievement of empowering women with physical disabilities in starting a business. In addition, this paper also discusses the scientific justification for the proposal for the construction of the Economic Empowerment Model (Entrepreneurship) for Physically Disabled Women as an output of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A nation-state is a sovereign state with the people have an awareness that they have something in common. There is something in common that can be seen among those who live together in the same nationstate territory based on language, customs and old traditions that are shared. In short, a nation-state is a state entity that is free from any world concept of empire. In Malaysia, the basis of nation-state building has existed since the reign of the Malay king, while the British administrative system during the colonial period had introduced Malaya to the concept of a modern nation-state. Thus, this study aims to highlight the history of the nation-state formation in Malaysia and the challenges in order to achieve the goal. This is a qualitative academic history article and the writing used the document analysis method. In addition to that, the Social Science analysis methods are also used to give a more extensive and broad writing analysis. The results of the study found that the nation-state building in the country is an ongoing process. The process has been formed through the traditional nation-state concept that existed before the British colonial era, thus the process keep developed during the colonial period and continued after the independence based on the development of as a sovereign nation-state. Until the post-independence era, the policies that the government tried to highlight continued to empower the nation-state concept to form a nation-of-intent in the country that became the objective of all independent countries. This paper is expected to give such a broad overview of the history and challenges faced by the country in its efforts to form a nation-of-intent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This concept paper focuses on the challenges in healthcare volunteers by exploring the issues faced by Malaysia while conducting relief missions. This will help them to support and develop role plans to increase their preparedness in the field. This paper will explore the challenges faced by healthcare volunteers and their response to the COVID-19 crisis. The challenges of healthcare volunteers have tremendous increased when COVID-19 hit the world. The role of healthcare volunteers is undeniably important in the field and often said to be the backbone in humanitarian assistance especially to the government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). However, the development of healthcare volunteering activities is still insufficient and at an unsatisfactory level. There are cases which the volunteers still lack of experience, training and preparation when dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. This issue can be seen clearly when the Malaysian government, through the Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) urged for more healthcare volunteers to come forward to assist MOH against the COVID-19 pandemic issue. Healthcare volunteers tend to have the great potential to provide important and substantial support to governments and NGOs. This is hoped to be an inspiration to healthcare volunteers to help against the COVID-19 pandemic and to the social's well-being psychological and development of the community. In this concept paper, the author will explore the challenges in order to increase the preparedness of volunteers and their effectiveness in providing assistance to the community in the COVID-19 pandemic situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers are an important political socialization agent in assisting the process of fostering ethnic unity among students. At primary school level, teachers act as influential political socialization agents in nurturing awareness of students at their early age on the importance of ethnic unity especially in the context of a multi-ethnic society in Malaysia. However, the process of fostering ethnic unity in Malaysia generally, and at the primary school level in particular, is still faced with various challenges and obstacles. Hence, this paper discusses the barriers to the role of teachers as effective political socialization agents from the aspect of school administration practices in shaping ethnic unity at the primary school level. The data collection process for this study was carried out through focus group discussions method involving 16 Malay, Chinese and Indian teachers from National School (SK), The Chinese National Type School (SJKC) and Tamil (SJKT) in Petaling district, Selangor. The results found that there are three factors of administrative practices that hinder teachers in playing a role as agents of ethnic unity that can affect the process of fostering the values of unity in a school. First, teacher separation system throught double-session schooling system; second, grouping of teachers in teacher's office by subject; and thirdly, the focus more on syllabus than other aspects such as ethnic unity in school. This study found that these three factors contribute to the existence of ethnic gaps among teachers, but also at the same time become an obstacle to the role of teachers as effective agents of ethnic unity in schools. Hence, the school should pay attention to this issue and raise awareness of all school members on the importance of ethnic unity in the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]