Yaspem foundation helps Maluku refugees, the poor

Yaspem foundation helps Maluku refugees, the poor

JAKARTA (JP): Maria Mediatrix Mali, a resident of Maumere,
East Nusa Tenggara, and director of the Society Development
Foundation (Yaspem), dashes to a pig sty in nearby Kewapante
village.

She has been informed a baby has been abandoned by its parents
in the sty. And there it is, a small baby lying on the ground,
surrounded by pigs. Maria quickly picks up the baby and brings it
to her house.

She later finds out that the baby's parents are refugees from
Ambon, Maluku, and very poor.

"The mother was very depressed. Knowing that she couldn't
afford to look after her baby, she placed the baby in the sty so
the pigs would eat it," Maria told The Jakarta Post during a
recent visit to Jakarta.

Because the mother was so shaken by her anguish, she was
admitted to the hospital, said Maria, who was able to find a
couple willing to adopt the baby.

"Since the parents are not rich, we promised to provide them a
subsidy every month. That's why I came here, to help raise funds
for the baby, refugees and many others suffering from poverty,"
she said on the sidelines of a seminar hosted by the Jakarta
archbishop.

According to Maria, there are approximately 250 refugee
families from Ambon and East Timor living in Maumere, who have
the shared experience of violence.

"The refugees mostly came from East Timor. Only 10 percent are
refugees from Ambon," she said.

These refugees add to the burden for the already poor
residents of Maumere. Located on the east coast of Flores island,
Maumere is home to about 51,000 families totaling approximately
250,000 people.

"Around 78 percent of those families are classified as poor,"
Maumere Regent Paulus Moa told the Post by telephone.

Most of the residents make their living as farmers and
fishermen, but they still use traditional methods to work the
land and sea. There are almost no other natural resources in the
area besides the sea, with the majority of the territory savanna.

"The dry season here is longer than in most areas in
Indonesia. It could be eight months," Maria said.

Over the past several years, conditions have been worsened by
earthquakes, floods and annual tsunami storms, all of which have
destroyed farmland.

"Many people here have ended up in debt," Maria said.

The natural disasters also orphaned thousands of children. "We
have three orphanages here, all of them run by the church,"
Paulus said.

Maria also said there were thousands of widows living in
Maumere. Most are old, but they still remember the dark days of
the 1970s when their husbands were killed for alleged ties with
the now outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

"Those people were peasants. They didn't know anything about
politics or communism. They supported the PKI because they
thought it was the Indonesian Catholic Party," she said.

The Indonesian Catholic Party, a minor party during the era of
first president Sukarno, was not commonly referred to by an
acronym.

Most of the widows live in poverty, and their children only
made it through elementary school, if that far.

For these widows and their daughters, Yaspem provides training
in such skills as sewing, weaving and making accessories.

"We train them so they have skills and can do something to
earn money.

"Their products are beautiful, especially the woven cloth. The
problem is we don't have anyone who can sell them on the market,"
Maria said.

The foundation also trains school dropouts, in coordination
with the Ministry of Industry and Trade. (hdn)