WVI is feeding the hungry and building a village

WVI is feeding the hungry and building a village

By Danielle Bray

JAKARTA (JP): Buoyant laughter, and ear to ear smiles filter
through the hallway of an elementary school located in North
Jakarta. The classrooms are spartan, housing no more than two
pictures on their cold stone walls. Children sit diligently
behind their desks, enjoying their morning snack. Their uniforms
are slightly soiled and their shoes may not be brand new, but
underneath all the lack of material possessions, these children
want nothing other than the warm meal that is provided to them
every morning.

At 9 a.m. on school days, a crowd of nearly 300 elementary
students form a line in front of a small makeshift kitchen where
they are served rice, vegetables, meat and eggs by the
humanitarian group World Vision Indonesia (WFI).

During the economic crisis, a lack of food in the urban
context created "new poor" populations around Jakarta. There were
a large number of families that were unable to maintain their
daily diets, and nutritional standards. Organizations such as
World Vision implemented a program that provides 28 elementary
schools with one balanced meal a day. The government supplied the
organization with a list of schools that were in need of a
nutritional boost. The institutions were selected by measuring
the nutritional status, family income, and need for care of their
pupils.

School meals were introduced to the chosen schools in
September of 1999. Members of the village Family Welfare Movement
(PKK) group participate in preparing the meals for the children.
They cook rice in coconut milk, meat or chicken, an assortment of
vegetables, and, on occasion, eggs. Prior to the institutional
feeding, the children of these impoverished villages lived on
tempe (bean curd), for it was low in cost and satisfied their
hunger pains.

Pak Slamet, the school's principal noted, "since the setting
up of the school meals program, the students have gained weight,
and their teachers have noticed an improvement in mental
alertness."

A World Vision Indonesia employee, Indri, said, "Through this
program, we know that the children are given at least one solid
meal a day... a major improvement over their previous
circumstances."

In order to establish value, and separate necessity from
charity, the students are required to pay a small charge for each
meal. When the children line up to receive their food, they are
instructed to give the meals attendant Rp 100. The money is then
placed in a fund, and put towards each students' continuing
education. It costs Rp 54,000 per child for a half year term, a
price that is sometimes difficult for the family to afford.

"Paying Rp 100 is manageable, and allows the students to feel
that they have helped to pay for part of their education"
explained E. Tudirur, the development facilitator for WVI.

Kampung Tengah, the village where the children reside, is also
a pet project of World Vision Indonesia. Piled-up garbage,
overflowing drains, and a dearth of public washrooms describes
the conditions there prior to the organization's intervention. It
is still a difficult place to come to terms with, a surreal
environment that draws attention to the obvious level of poverty
in the area. Many of the residents live in one-room shelters that
line a dirt path, where they gather to cook on their gas stoves.
Clusters of villagers sit between the dwellings, and peel onions
which are sold at the local evening market.

Mothers

While the children are being fed once a day, their mothers are
participating in the Food for Work (FFW) urban development
project. WVI believes that in order to maintain the nutritional
standards of the family, it is important to tend to the needs of
the women. "In order to produce strong infants, the mothers need
to be in a healthy nutritional bracket, their health is very
important to the cycle of development... that is why they are our
main target," explained Indri.

Food for Work provides support and nutritional supplements,
through education and community involvement. The project allows
women to be involved in the sanitation, infrastructure and
environmental affairs of the village. The women participate in
the smaller tasks that aid the men in building gutters, latrines,
paved walkways, wells and health clinics. The women pair up and
carry a load of sand on a hammock-inspired piece of plastic.
Once they arrive at the place for mixing the cement, where the
men of the village are often hard at work, they empty the
contents, and continue back to the pile.

"It is a sense of community involvement... we all work very
well together," explained a female villager. "The benefit of
everyone working together is that it allows the job to get done
faster... creating improvements for the village," stated another
Kampung Tengah resident.

The women are rewarded for their hard work by receiving 3 kg
of rice per day. At the end of each 22-day work period, they are
given 66 kg of rice, along with two tins of cooking oil.

This is a welcome means of remuneration for the ladies, as it
gives them a sense of responsibility and worth. It promotes
equality, something that is quite uncommon in the male-dominated
sphere of village life.

The majority of the women are also employed at the daily
market, where they earn a small wage for peeling onions and
chilies. "We are more than happy to work for food, it allows us
to save our wages for other uses," remarked one FFW recipient
from the village.

WVI started the FFW campaign in order to supply the villages
with the necessities that they had become accustomed to living
without. "We used to have to travel a long distance in order to
receive health care, now we have built a clinic in our village...
it is very convenient," stated the community leader of Kampung
Tengah.

WVI entered the village in May of 1999. Since then, the meager
surroundings now boast two health clinics, 5,000 gutters, 106
public latrines, and numerous paved walkways.

World Vision's website is www.wvi.org