East Bali Poverty Project brings hope

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-- the only crops their outdated farming techniques could grow.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.