Oil firms play their part where govt can't

Berni K. Moestafa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

For a child with a home as remote as it is inaccessible, living on land rich in mineral resources may save him or her from the uneven distribution of state-funded access to welfare.

Oil, gold and coal can bring out the pioneering spirit of companies and lure them into working at the frontiers.

Though not always an environmental blessing, their presence can open up isolated regions and give children greater access to welfare.

One of these firms is PT Medco Energi Internasional, Indonesia's largest private-owned local oil and gas company.

Operating oil fields in East Kalimantan, South Sumatra, Riau and other areas, Medco thinks its role in helping children there is clear.

"Obviously we must play a part where the government can't," said Medco investor relations officer, Thendri Suprianto.

To this end, Medco drew up a community development program that serves long term needs, generates broad participation from the community and local authorities, develops and enhances local resources, and is designed to be fully accountable and nondiscriminatory in its implementation, as well as target oriented, effectively delivered and responsive to change.

Bringing this all down to children is the Exspan Group, a Medco subsidiary in charge of operating its oil fields.

Through Exspan, Medco has built schools, provided clothing, and held routine immunization and circumcision programs, Thendri said.

U.S. based oil and gas giant PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia sees in children the foundations of its community development program.

"Children are the basis of society, our community development starts with them," Caltex spokesman Renville Almatsier said.

Caltex's main operation is located in Riau, where it has had a presence for over 70 years.

In the 50s, Caltex built the first high school on Riau's oil fields, followed by the first junior high school in Bengkalis.

Others Caltex equipped with libraries, laboratories and sports facilities. Students were offered scholarships and sent abroad.

Renville added that granting scholarships to students outside Riau had once drawn criticisms from the local community.

They wanted Caltex's priority to stay with the locals, he recalled. "We have since reduced our aid to outsiders and concentrated more on the people of Riau," Renville said.

He said some regencies vied to obtain Caltex's community projects, a situation that often tested the company's neutrality.

"To play it safe, we now increase participation in local authorities' programs which we can help fund," he said.

Caltex sponsors local scouting activities including participation in the national Jamboree scouting event.

In sports, Caltex built the Tribuana stadium in Telaga Kalinjuhang, refurbished the Hang Tuah stadium in Pekanbaru, and supplied materials for a football field in Bangkinang.

In the mining industry, Australian mining giant Rio Tinto set up the Rio Tinto Foundation (RTF) for its community development programs.

The company's main operations are located in East Kalimantan, where it has stakes in coal mining company PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC), and gold mining company PT Kelian Equatorial Mining (KEM).

"For children the problems everywhere are basically the same: education and health," RTF executive director for Indonesia, Tom Malik said.

In the West Kutai regency, he said, RTF had developed a program linking education with health.

Children are taught about health care under a program RTF has adopted from a non-government organization in Ambon, he said.

What made this school lesson different was that it required interaction between the teacher, the students and their families, Tom explained.

For example, he said, students with babies in their families are told to bring their mothers and the babies for regular check- ups at public health posts.

Set up by the government, the public health posts, called posyandu, provide villagers with cheap access to health care.

A survey showed that visits to posyandus by mothers doubled during the year following the program's launch in 1997, Tom said.

The RTF's sponsored curriculum raises the children's awareness of health issues. It teaches them how to stay healthy and to identify the common diseases in their environment, he said.

Since its launch, the number of schools that have joined the program has grown from an initial 20 to 125.

"As participation in the program has grown, we've also refined the text books we provide, making them better," Tom said.

Because of the program's success, he said, the local authority agreed to include it in their local school curriculum.

"We're close to reaching an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) agreement with the local authority," Tom said.

At first teachers were reluctant to adopt the program, objecting to the additional working hours, he added.

But once the program was included in the local curriculum, the local authority would compensate for the additional hours, he said.

Now, Tom said, he was hoping to expand the program to children at some 500 schools in the West Kutai regency.