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