Lippo gives aid to villagers caught in the current crisis

TANGERANG (JP): PT Lippo Karawaci, developer of the vast integrated housing, shopping and golf course complex here, donated seedlings, chickens, fish and ducks to 260 poor families living in the area on Saturday.

The assistance to the poor residents of Bencongan and Kelapa Dua village is intended to help locals survive the current economic crisis.

"This aid is meant to help the poor people who would like to learn how to farm," said the head of Kelapa Dua village, Ahmad Sanur.

The aid consisted of 2,000 catfish and 200 ducks for a 20- member group from each village; 160 chickens for 40 families in the two villages; and 500 seedlings for 100 families in the two villages.

The catfish and ducks were given only to those residents living near ponds in the villages, Sanur said.

According to the plan, the villagers will be trained by local experts and representatives from Lippo Karawaci to raise the seedlings and animals in order to cope with the country's crippling economic crisis, Sanur said.

The assistance was greeted with enthusiasm by the villagers, even those who have not farmed for many years.

"I'll try to do it again. I used to farm to help my father when I was a teenager. Many of the people in the village stopped farming when the area became developed," said Timan, the head of a neighborhood in Kelapa Dua.

Ahmad, a villager who received five pots of seedlings, plans to grow the seedlings on the tiny lawn by his house.

"I'm now preparing to become a farmer," he said.

PT Lippo Karawaci was planning to complete a 2,360-hectare urban development project here, about 25 minutes from Jakarta, when last year's May riots halted the project.

During the riots, hundreds of stores and restaurants in the Lippo Supermal shopping center were looted and vandalized by mobs of people, mostly from nearby areas.

Parts of the shopping center were also set ablaze. Scores of people, believed to be looters, died in the fires.

An official at Lippo, FX Sujasmin, said during Saturday's ceremony that the aid package was "not quite big".

However, he hoped that the small donation would help poverty- stricken locals survive the current crisis. (41/bsr)