Capacity building: Enabling learning in rural community through partnership

Education can liberate a poor rural community and partnership can effectively create an informal learning environment with noteworthy results when the appropriate context, process and goal are put in place. A case of Batu Puteh community in Sabah (Borneo), Malaysia that thrives on community-based tourism exemplifies how partnership contributed to capacity building of the local people. In-depth interviews with the local community and external partners selected through purposive sampling and direct observations of the physical environment and the local community were the main research instruments. Findings show that readiness of the local community to embrace changes and the effectiveness of partnership identifiable in its process, context, and outcome were the key factors in capacity building. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.