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HARAPAN SUMBAWA PROYEK Report by Carlos Ferrandiz

subawaThe Foundation is pleased to be working with Carlos with our Food Plant Solution & Solar Light program .Their Facebook reflects the good work that is being achieved .This report reflects the needs. A.- General information about Indonesia :Indonesia is a country that has been seriously affected economically and socially during the latest years by the constant natural disasters it has suffered(earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, typhoons, etc.) As a simple example,   2011 the Merapi volcano, located on the island of Java, had 3 outbreaks; they also had a terrible tsunami that literally devastated theMentawai islands. Natural disasters are a constant in the history of Indonesiaand the lives of his local population.Also, the country’s economic crisis has affected millions of workers with theconsequence that thousands of children have been forced to leave school to goto work. Child labour is a major problem in Indonesia, at least 2.3 millionchildren aged 10 to 14 years and 3.8 million aged 15 to 18 years are workingto help their families.

B.- Specific information about Hu´u (Sumbawa) 1:Sumbawa belongs to the Republic of Indonesia and is situated three islandsaway from the island of Bali. Sumbawa Island is strikingly different fromBali. Bali is an extraordinarily developed island, both economically and in1 Source: CIA World Factbook; Information provided by the local authorities of Sumbawa.tourism, where thousands of tourists from all over the world arrive at its airport every day. Even if Sumbawa is much larger than Bali (Bali: 5,700km2, Sumbawa: 15,448 km2), it only receives a few tourists a week.Moreover, the people of Sumbawa hardly know how to exploit its tourism,which could help them leave the extreme poverty in which they are living.On the island of Sumbawa, in particular in the province of Dompu, is locatedthe community of Hu’u formed by a group of 6 villages, built over an area of30 kilometers of roads, and inhabited by about 8,050 people, of which 30%are of school age. Their main problems are those of the country, but with greater social impact given the characteristics of the area and the obvioussocial exclusion in which the population lives, particularly considering that this population is foreign to any kind of infrastructure. Moreover, as an areawith limited economic resources, the weakness of the local population is accentuated.Despite having a literacy rate of 91%, school failure in Indonesia is at a 50% dropout for a basic education that lasts six years. The above figures are unrepresentative in reference to the population of Hu’u, where the literacy rate and school failure is in a much less optimistic level.Moreover, education in Indonesia is of very low quality, with teachers who mostly have no university degrees or any preparation for teaching. The Indonesian teaching system also has no technical or professional content, so the children?s success in professional opportunities is absolutely non-existent.All the above results in the local population?s total distrust towards the school and cause the enormous schooling failure of the children. According to teachers, many parents show little interest in their children attending school and, either by necessity or apathy, they prefer them to help with household chores, in the case of girls, or cooperate in the tasks of the field in the case of boys. An appropriate education for the local teachers of Hu´u will improve their capacity to teach and the education provided in the local schools, and will also motivate the trust towards the school of the local population. The inadequacy of school structures and the educational system to the characteristics of disadvantaged populations, leads to significant gaps in education and training in these populations. The precariousness of living standards in rural areas, the high rate of illiteracy and school failure in the area, as well as the high rate of child labour, place younger adults in Hu’u in a situation of extreme vulnerability

The first observation that arises is, therefore, that many school-aged children are not attending school regularly, mostly children living in the more remote rural communities. In addition, many children can´t go to school because they are doing inappropriate productive tasks for their age: farming, agriculture, small trader?s assistants, shoe cleaning, etc. Access to schools is not easy dueto the lack of school transport and poor communications, which prevented children from distant villages to get to school every day. Providing free transport to the local schools will increase the attendance to the same. If the education situation for children is very poor, the adult education systems are totally inexistent. Among the adult population there are extremely high rates of illiteracy. It is estimated that about one third of these people are functionally illiterate, either because they didn?t attend school at the time, or because at present there is no specific training program dedicated to this segment of the population. The local population of Hu´u does not have many working opportunities, motivated by the lack of professional preparation. They are engaged in working the land and fishing, together with gathering seaweed for cosmetics companies and selling them to intermediates at a ridiculous price. The creation of a cooperative will help them to increase their incomes supporting them tosell their production directly to the buyer and not to intermediates. Also, an appropriate professional education will help them to create new working opportunities.

To these reasons we must add the high incidence of childhood disease, mainly caused by the poor health care, as well as the lack of vaccination among the local population. There are many cases, not rigorously quantified, of children with severe disabilities. Also the low economic situation of the local population provokes that they cannot get appropriate medical treatments and medications in case of illness. A free medical assistance of a PCP (Primary Care Physician) will help the local population in case of illness. Also an appropriate medical and sanitary education of the local population will prevent proliferation of illness.

Finally, from the environmental point of view, there is no type of municipal waste collection, so there is a steady proliferation of uncontrolled dumping by the local population. In this sense, the local population is showing a null environmental education. Therefore, providing education and environmental waste management is absolutely essential to maintaining and safeguarding the natural resources of the area.

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