Poor to get mobile training units

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto launched a mobile vocational training program yesterday to help people in impoverished areas create jobs for themselves.

The Ministry of Manpower has provided 370 vans as mobile training units for the 1997/1998 fiscal year to train a minimum of 35,000 job-seekers in villages across all 27 provinces except Jakarta.

Yayasan Dana Sejahtera Mandiri, a foundation chaired by Soeharto which focuses on helping the poor, also pledged to give another 400 vehicles to the program.

"This program aims to facilitate poor families in rural areas raise their standard of living," Soeharto said in his speech at the program's inauguration ceremony at his Bina Graha office.

According to the President, improved training in rural areas would help curb urbanization because villagers could work in their own villages.

Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief said the free vocational training the program offered included skills needed for fruit processing, fishing, tailoring, making handicrafts, and repairing electronic goods.

The program costs US$25 million. The funding was provided by a soft loan from the South Korean government under a bilateral agreement.

The instructors will stay at least two weeks in each village they visit."The people will be trained according their talents and market demand," Latief said.

This program is a part of the government's integrated efforts to alleviate poverty in Indonesia, where at least 22.5 million people were still living in poverty in 1996.

The government is determined to completely eradicate poverty by the end of the Seventh Five-Year Development Program in 2004, Soeharto said last month.

Yayasan Dana Sejahtera Mandiri has collected more than Rp 768.6 billion (US$320.25 million) from the country's richest citizens over the last two years.

"We will give another 400 vehicles to the manpower ministry to accelerate the program," the foundation's deputy chairman Haryono Suyono said.

"After completing their training, we will provide them with cheap credit to start their business," Haryono, who is state minister of population, said.

Latief said Indonesia would have a work-force of 105 million by 2000, of whom 83 percent would have only an elementary school education or be dropouts. Most would be living in rural areas.

"Their production must be market-oriented, and it is our duty to train them," said Latief. (06)