KL Youth Walking the Talk

DOMINIQUE TEOH | 11 August 2025

Kerja Jalan takes to the heart of KL — strolling by the Klang River, sparking conversations and spotting ways to make our streets safer and friendlier for everyone.

KUALA Lumpur is layered with stories. It's a city where personal memory entwines with national history, turning buildings into canvases for heritage and lived experience. These are the narratives that help us feel connected to the city and to each other.

In celebration of International Youth Day on Aug 12, Warisan KL spoke to three Malaysians who make heritage more accessible through storytelling. From oral history to walking conversations, these movements are helping people rediscover their capital city.

The KL Oral History Project

It’s easy to forget how young Malaysia is. We live in a time when the waning of colonialism and the rise of post-Merdeka idealism still exist in living memory. This privilege is not lost on Dennis Ong, 31, a cultural worker and urban historian who has been recording oral histories through his podcast, the KL Oral History Project, since 2023.

Ong is a familiar face in Malaysia’s cultural advocacy scene, having worked on projects ranging from exhibitions to walking tours. He’s also involved with Kaki Jelajah Warisan, where he helped translate the Petaling Street Walking Guidebook under the Merdeka 118 Community Grants Programme.

Dennis Ong isn’t chasing virality — he’s out in the streets of KL, hoping his podcast inspires others to capture and share their own oral histories.

“Whenever you encounter someone with so much to share – and then that conversation just gets forgotten – it’s so sayang (it’s such a pity). That’s why I started this project,” shares Ong.

One episode, titled “Padang Romantics,” tells the story of two friends who took a patch of grass from Padang Merdeka, landing themselves on the front page of national newspapers. In another episode – “God Lived In Brickfields!” – Jayanath Appudurai shares his childhood memories of 1950s Brickfields, blending nostalgia with working class history. You can listen to these stories on Spotify.

Ong during a live Oral History interview session with Jayanath Appudurai at Nam Hoe Brickfields in 2023. – Photo: Caleb Goh

Playful and personal, oral histories complement the austere annals of academia. “Histories are often written in a very descriptive way,” notes Ong. “It’s somebody writing about it, not somebody narrating their own experience.” Aside from the stories themselves, oral histories also capture the accents, dialects and idiosyncrasies of the speaker.

Ong’s subjects are animated, their voices punctuated by boisterous laughs and quiet pauses. Many of them are elderly Malaysians, for whom this project offers a deep sense of recognition and appreciation.

“It bridges the generational gap,” Ong shares. “But the young generation has to take up the initiative to actively want to learn.”

Ong does not care if his podcast goes viral, but he hopes listeners will be encouraged to record their own oral histories. His advice? Start with your own social circle.

“Listen to those stories and try to build a relationship with the city,” he says. “It’s the people that make up the city.”

Kerja Jalan

Landmarks form our image of the city, but it’s often the spaces in between that shape how we experience them.

“When you talk about heritage sites and being able to walk and access them safely, accessibility is very crucial,” shares Yasmin Lane of Kerja Jalan.

Kerja Jalan is an advocacy group that pushes for pedestrian-friendly cities through walking conversations and street audits. Inspired by the global Jane’s Walk movement, the group was founded in 2019 by thirtysomething urbanists Yasmin Lane and Awatif Ghapar.

Awatif Ghapar and Yasmin Lane (right) hit the streets with Kerja Jalan, driven by a shared dream to create cities where everyone can walk, work and live safely — one conversation at a time.

The pair were brought together by a desire to create cities where everyone can walk, work and live safely. Yasmin is an urban planner with a background that spans policy and project management, while Awatif made the transition from consultancy and human resources to urbanism and sustainable city-making.

“We use walking to raise awareness about safer, more inclusive streets and cities,” says Awatif. It’s a collaborative process, equal parts storytelling and data collection.

The idea is simple – gather a group of people and explore an area together. Participants then record their observations in a feedback form, which is used as data for street audits.

“Everyone shares their unique experiences of the city,” shares Awatif. “Someone who walks to work every day might notice the potholes, while a parent might focus on the lack of play areas or stroller-friendly streets.

“We’re not [heritage] experts, we’re not tour guides,” cautions Yasmin. While tour guides avoid smelly corners and cracked pavements (for good reason), Kerja Jalan turns them into conversation pieces. Why aren't we collecting rubbish better? What does this crack mean for a person with disabilities? “We don’t shy away from what the city is,” she adds.

Kerja Jalan has organised about 50 walks since its inception, and its participants are diverse to say the least. From toddlers to 80-year-old uncles, the group welcomes people from all walks of life. Previous walks have also centred the experiences of specific groups, such as Rohingya refugees and parents with strollers.

A children’s walk in conjunction with ‘Somewhere in the Kuala Walk’, an illustrated children's book published by Suburbia Project and a series of events focused on exploring Kuala Lumpur through the eyes of children.

Accessibility and inclusion lie at the heart of Kerja Jalan’s advocacy. “By hearing each other’s stories, people start to see how different design issues affect others in ways they may not have thought about before, building empathy for one another’s challenges and encouraging solutions that can benefit everyone,” shares Awatif.

Yasmin echoes this sentiment: “Access is so important in heritage places, so everyone can access these shared cultural assets. Cobblestones, you know, are beautiful, but they are not that friendly for a lot of people.”

Walking conversations are a great way to experience the city in someone else’s shoes, drawing attention to potential barriers to access. They are a subtle reminder that the city is for everyone, democratising not just access to buildings, but the narratives that surround them.

“That’s why our walk is not just about the buildings. Not just about the physical,” Yasmin says. “It’s all these personal and shared experiences of the city,” she says. “If you want people to love their city, this is how it’s possible.”

A Merdeka Walk around Jalan Ampang and Jalan Tun Perak to explore city rejuvenation work around the area.

Connecting through stories

Kuala Lumpur is a palimpsest of stories. Look beyond the new developments and you’ll find a multitude of memories etched into buildings and streets. Initiatives like KL Oral History Project and Kerja Jalan help us engage with these stories, reminding us that heritage is both personal and collective.

Ultimately, it’s about making the stories and lived experiences of the city accessible to everyone. Whether it’s recording podcasts or improving pedestrian infrastructure, these initiatives help us understand our relationship to the city, bringing us closer to our history and to each other.

As the Malay proverb goes, tak kenal maka tak cinta — you can’t love what you don’t know. So if you want to fall in love with Kuala Lumpur all over again, you may want to start here.

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