Lua Lemba Education & Community Development Foundation - Rote, Indonesia

The community of Delha on Rote Island in eastern Indonesia is the first that Indigo provided support to - starting in 2000. Lua Lemba (“fresh spring”) is a local not-for-profit organisation, which has implemented a range of education and health initiatives in the past decade. Indigo’s support has contributed to the establishment of two senior high schools; the provision of education bursaries for children from kindergarten through to senior high school; enabled mother and child health workshops; the development of a Healthy Schools program; and the introduction of permaculture techniques to local farming villages. Three years ago, Lua Lemba launched a reproductive health program for young men and women, which has included peer education, development of school curricula, links with local HIV/AIDs organisations, theatre workshops and a very popular annual Healthy Living Festival.

Context

Rote is a small island located southwest of West Timor. IF works with the communities of Delha, which is the western most province of Rote. Delha consists of four main villages (plus a number of sub villages) and has a population of approximately 2,800. Owing to its remote location, Delha receives little government (or non-government) development assistance and lacks basic services such as water supply and electricity.

Delha has undergone rapid changes in the social and economic environment (such as the transition to a cash economy which resulted in a large reduction in the volunteer capacity and interest of the community); changes in local government administration and resources; and increased land control by foreigners.

Partner since: 2000
Project Manager: Elizabeth House
Project Advisor: Ian Seal
Management Committee representative: Sally Stevenson

The Project

IF has provided core funding to the Delha communities, enabling them to make decisions about their priorities. These priorities have included: the establishment of two senior high schools; the provision of education bursaries for children from kindergarten through to senior high school; enabled health and hygiene workshops to be conducted; the development of a Health Schools Program; provision of computer classes; the building of an office for Lua Lemba (including the establishment of a reading room); and facilitating the acquisition of birth and marriage certificates. IF is also supporting a reproductive health program and an agriculture/permaculture program.

Funding: $5000 per year

Activities /Successes

Reproductive Health Project
In response to a request from the Rote community, a Reproductive Health Project has been run in the schools during annual visits by Indigo volunteers Ian Seal and Lea Trafford. Over the past three years the project has covered reproductive biology, sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, protective behaviours, sexual health and dealing with peer pressure. In 2009 the focus is on training peer educator teams and developing a strategy to ensure the knowledge gained from the project is kept alive in the schools and passed on in the broader community.

This year the programme involved separate sessions with teachers and students, then combined sessions were held culminating in a team of peer educators taking a presentation to the junior high school in a neighbouring district. The respect given and received by the participants, the mix of fun and seriousness in a new learning environment on sensitive issues formed strong bonds among all who took part in the programme.

Australian Youth Ambassador position
This year an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD) position for a Community Development Officer in Education has been advertised on the web with a proposed March 2010 start. IF will be the Australian Partner Organisation for the placement and Lua Lemba the in-country host. The position is for one year and will be based at the Senior High School in Delha. Lua Lemba will provide accommodation and a training room in their office building. There is much enthusiasm for the project both in the school in the wider community where there is a demand for adult education classes in English conversation.

Expanding food production
In May 2009 Lua Lemba hosted a familiarisation visit from M’bore Project Officer Rachel Kelly. Rachel consulted with the Oehela Farmer’s Group (OFG) in M’bore regarding their request for a three- month resident volunteer to assist with expanding the variety of vegetables they could grow. On discussing the project with permaculture specialists in Australia a new, much bigger, proposal has been drawn up. We hope this proposal will result in two AYAD volunteers spending eight months in M’bore in 2011. This proposal comes at a very exciting time when the OFG is consolidating a partnership with the Universitas Nusa Cendana Kupang (UNDANA) Agriculture Department, who have a team working with the OFG on food production – based on fish, deer and rabbit farming, and who are lobbying for the M’bore drinking water bore to be repaired. A partnership conservation project for the snake necked turtle is also under discussion.

The OFG has also been experimenting with filtration systems to provide drinking water from the lake at M’bore. Water from a simple upward flow filtration system is currently being tested at UNDANA for suitability for drinking.

The village of Bo’a has also expressed an interest in expanding their seasonal sweet potato gardens. Currently these gardens do not produce an income in proportion to the size of the gardens and the hours of cultivation as sweet potato is regarded as subsistence food. The Oehela Farmer’s Group has indicated their interest in supporting the gardeners in Bo’a and exchanging information. The proposed volunteer placement would also work in Bo’a if a gardening group can be formed there.

New community projects
Among many new projects for the year, Lua Lemba has supported the production of a booklet documenting the weaving and dying process of traditional ikat cloth in Rote. The draft booklet was taken to the 2009 Ubud Readers and Writers Festival where it was received enthusiastically, resulting in an increased scope. Now it will include not only the documentation of process but also the stories of the women who hold the knowledge of the tradition, translated into Indonesian, English and the language of Delha. It is hoped the book will be finished by September 2010.

Lua Lemba is also exploring a partnership with the Nemberala Beach Resort to support a reference library and community centre proposed for the local community. Funds for the building will be collected by donation from guests at the hotel. The building design has been donated by a resident architect, and land has been provided by the Nemberala Anda Iko primary school. Construction will be by donated labour from the local and ex-pat communities.

This year Lua Lemba has also provided bursaries to school children; funded public toilets in the outlying village of Bo’a; supported a small traditional dance group in the neighbouring district of Oenale; negotiated building a wall around the new kindergarten in Delha, which is on a very busy intersection, and allocated tertiary bursaries to students studying in Kupang.

Challenges

Lua Lemba’s development has not been without its challenges, as the small organisation struggled with a high workload in response to community needs and outsider (IF) support; rapid changes in the social and economic environment (such as the transition to a cash economy which resulted in a large reduction in the volunteer capacity and interest of the community); changes in local government administration and resources; increased land control by foreigners; and (relatively) new development concepts such as community ownership and decision-making transparency. These created organisational challenges for Lua Lemba, some of which have been difficult to negotiate.

Supporting a local 'not-for-profit' organisation through such difficulties and, importantly, working to build capacity to manage them, is central to IF’s mandate. To provide this support, Project Manager, Libby House visited Rote three times during 2005-06 (one trip was self funded). These visits were not always easy. Sensitive and complex issues had to be discussed and reflected upon. However, the last trip of 2006 witnessed a watershed. IF led an extensive community consultation and community based planning and prioritization process. This was undertaken using open workshops in each village, with the key objective being to evaluate Lua Lemba’s work to date and to empower the community to contribute to future activities. An additional aim was to provide Lua Lemba with a planning tool and a mechanism for ongoing self-evaluation and problem solving. The workshops not only allowed IF to model our Guiding Principles (transparency, sustainability, community ownership and equity), but also validated Lua Lemba’s work over the past five years.
During that trip, Lua Lemba received an overall approval rating from the community of almost 80%, and had acknowledged and/or was addressing nine of the top twelve development priorities identified by the community. These included: support for local handicrafts; development of an equitable savings and loans project; recruiting a native speaking English teacher for the Senior High School, provision of a photocopier for dissemination of information, provision of computer classes and health education programmes, establishment of a reading room, and facilitation of birth and marriage certificates.

Lessons learned

What also became evident during the 2006 visit was that, viewed from an overarching strategic perspective, Lua Lemba’s activities were clearly aimed at building capacity and assisting the local population to recognise, manage and maximise changes taking place within their community. Even during difficult times, Lua Lemba had proven to be an asset to the population of Delha with a solid and forward thinking leadership. Even so, changes have been needed within Lua Lemba to allow it to be more representative and transparent. Subsequently, Lua Lemba was restructured to increase community involvement in decision-making through decentralisation (for example, village activity managers have now been recruited for the five constituent villages) as well as improved transparency.
Whereas we normally seek to visit a project once a year, it was Lua Lemba’s need for support during difficult times that sent Libby off again to Rote in February 2007, just six months after her previous visit in July 2006. Given the challenges Lua Lemba faced, it was vital that an IF representative went to ensure that improvements to program management, which were agreed on during Libby’s last visits, had taken place and to assist, where possible, the consolidation of these changes. Equally important was the need for IF to demonstrate to the Delha community our moral support to, and our faith in, Lua Lemba.
Libby’s 2007 trip was an extremely positive one. The agreed changes were being implemented and the community unanimously indicated they wanted the community consultation process to take place on a yearly basis. Libby found the accounts, which formerly were unfinished and messy, to be complete and accurate. She took the opportunity to help strengthen Lua Lemba’s capacity in planning, prioritising and budgeting. Overall, the community was very optimistic about the future of Lua Lemba.
Lua Lemba has requested planning and consultation workshops to be part of future monitoring and evaluation visits. We believe our support to Lua Lemba represents a true community development project - we are involved in assisting a community to define itself and to help it shape its future. In the second half of 2009 Libby spent five months working with Lua Lemba to help that future.

M'bore Water Project (82 kb)

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Indigo Project Manger for Rote and Savu is Libby House. Libby was born and educated in Hobart, Tasmania and discovered a passion for Indonesia and its textile traditions while working at the Australian Museum in Sydney. Libby has balanced her study and practice of Ikat weaving with Human Rights work in the area of Domestic Violence in Australia.

Currently in Indonesia working with Indigo Partner organisations Lua Lemba Education and Community Development Foundation in Rote and Yayasan Rai Due Ngadona Hu in Savu, Libby will take up the position of Indigo Development Co-ordinator on her return to Australia in December.

Libby cab be contacted c/- indigo.foundation@bigpond.com