East Bali Poverty Project brings hope

Simon Howland, Contributor, Jakarta

Long regarded as one of the brightest jewels in the Indonesian crown, Bali has suffered its share of hardships of late, with the bombings in Kuta in October last year being the most publicized of these.

Long before the terrible act of terrorism impacted the island of Bali and its economy, however, a group of people living in three hamlets in the district of Kubu in Karangasem, East Bali, had been suffering.

As recently as 1998, many of the 10,000 inhabitants of these hamlets lived in such abject poverty as to inspire comparisons to life in the Middle Ages.

With no running water or education, limited food, no medicine and no access to the outside world, the villagers led lives of such subsistence that to dwell any further in the future than the next day was pointless. Such was the isolation of several of the hamlets, that they had no contact with their fellows a mere two kilometers away.

Tourism, being the flesh and blood of Bali's economy, was a concept unknown to the villagers. They had had no contact with the government in living memory. To date, no accurate map exists of the area.

The staple diet of the villagers consisted of corn and cassava -- the only crops their outdated farming techniques could grow. When cassava constitutes a major part of a person's food intake it acts as a poison, preventing the dispersal of iodine in the body. This, coupled with an ignorance of personal health and hygiene, resulted in a very high child mortality rate, severe malnutrition and widespread goiter and cretinism, ailments caused by iodine deficiency and easily treated throughout the rest of Indonesia.

With illiteracy as high as 100 percent in some areas, any possible interaction with the outside world and individually motivated improvements were little more than a pipe dream, as the villagers had nothing to offer. They were therefore ignored to the extent that people living a mere twenty kilometers down the mountain did not know, or acknowledge, that these people existed.

In April 1998, a foreign resident of Bali, an Englishman by the name of David Booth, first identified the area. The people of the last hamlet to be "discovered", and the one in the worst state in regards infrastructure and health, asked Booth for help.

Deeply moved by the residents' plight and what he saw, he agreed to do what he could to help. In conjunction with two young men from the area -- Komang Kurniawan and Ardika Adinata, who had been fortunate enough to receive an education in Denpasar -- it was decided that things had to change.

Booth, a civil engineer with experience in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, decided that outside help would be required. Later that same year, after consulting with the village leaders and conducting preliminary surveys of the area and its inhabitants, he formed Yayasan Ekoturin and began the East Bali Poverty Project (EBPP).

The aim of the EBPP is to promote sustainable economic and social development in the village. Since 1998, several projects have commenced with the help of various donors and sponsors. Taking the villagers' thoughts and experiences into account, the EBPP has initiated projects to improve health, education, water access and infrastructure.

With the help of UNICEF and under the supervision of Balinese nutritionist Dr. Indraguna Pinatih, the EBPP has successfully eliminated iodine deficiency in the village.

Through surveys and interaction with the villagers, the EBPP concluded that the best way through which to achieve their goals was through the children. By improving education at the grassroots level, they believed the entire area would benefit.

By educating the children in basic health, language and agriculture, the hope is that the children would pass the information on to parents and others.

Although schools had existed before 1998, they were inaccessible to the people living further up the mountain.

Several groups have aided the development of schools in the hamlets, including Tjeerd Hoekstra and the Dutch village of Oppenhuizen, Bali's Dynasty Hotel, the British Women's Association (BWA) and the Australia/New Zealand Association (ANZA). The villagers themselves, assisted by the EBPP, have so far constructed three schools that are attended by children three times a week.

Literacy among the students at the schools has reached 100 percent.

Through a partnership with Thames Water in the United Kingdom, the EBPP is also working to establish a clean water supply for all in the villages. Previously, the villagers had to walk distances of up to several kilometers to obtain water.

The improvement in basic infrastructure has been the result of a concerted effort with the villagers, who provided the labor force under guidance of the EBPP team. The water sources have been cleaned up to improve the water quality, and a basic concrete trail has been constructed to enable better access to the hamlets higher up the mountain.

The motivation of the local people and the dedication of the EBPP staff, nearly all of who are from the area, have so far ensured the success, or have indicated the imminent success, of all the projects undertaken. The funding from those mentioned above, along with organizations such as Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia and Bali's Sari Tours, has made these improvements possible.

However, the EBPP is still a long way away from its ultimate goals of establishing complete self-sufficiency and sustainable social and economic development in the hamlets. In order to achieve this end, donors and sponsors are urgently required to ensure the future survival of the project.