QUARTERLY

October - December 2012

NEWSLETTER

PARTNERING with the COMMUNITY to TRANSFORM their LIVES through HOLISTIC community development & disaster response.

Village Planning Workshops

As 2012 came to a close it was time for CFK to once again facilitate participatory village workshops in the villages that we have been mentoring. These workshops enable the village members to evaluate the progress of their 2012 Village Action Plans to develop their villages and then to prepare their ongoing Village Action Plans for 2013. During December, CFK facilitated Village Action Planning Workshops in the sub-villages of Ruamonga and Sabeugungung. In the weeks leading up to the workshops, the Village Head and Planning Committee were busy with their preparations. The Planning Committee are elected by the village members and each is responsible to oversee the progress on one of the villages focus sectors for development, these sectors include; Economy, Farming, Education, Health and Social/Cultural. Last year CFK facilitated the rst Village Action Planning Workshops ever to be held at the sub-village level, in the past the Village Head made all the planning decisions with out the participation of the village members. However, after one year of being active in implementing their village plans, the village members

in participation with the community members

now have a better understanding of their rolls and responsibilities in participating in the Village Action Planning Workshop. They are now beginning to understand that their voice will be heard in the planning process, so this year they enthusiastically anticipated the opportunity to share their aspirations for the development of their village. The rst session of the workshop was devoted to reporting on the progress of their 2012 Village Action Plans, each committee member presented the progress that has been achieved in their respective sectors as well as problems they encountered in regard to meeting, or not meeting, their targets for 2012. CFK also gave a report on our development partnership initiatives within their village during 2012 including activities and achievements as well as the problems and struggles we encountered. The village members where then invited to give their comments and feedback on these progress reports. The next session explored the village members dreams and vision for a better future...as well as their current situation. The village members are all tsunami survivors who had lost their loved ones, homes and livelihoods in the 2010 tsunami. Due to the trauma it is often difcult to encourage disaster victims to start to dream about a brighter future, but at this years workshops (held 2 years after the tsunami) CFK noticed an increased level of participation from the village members, many of whom had a renewed sense of hope and enthusiastically listed the areas in which that they wanted to see development and progress in their lives and their villages over the next 12 months. The village members then joined one of 5 breakout groups (each of which covered one of the 5 development sectors) to analyze and evaluate the progress, strengths and resources as well as steps that they need to take to overcome problems and challenges they are still facing. Lively discussions were held in the local Mentawai language giving all the village members the opportunity to participate, topics discussed included improving their clean water situation and health services for mothers and babies as well as improving their house hold incomes. The results of these group analysis formed the basis for their ongoing 2013 Village Action Plans.

CFKs Organic Agriculture Teams Perseverance

introducing soya bean products (soya milk, tofu & tempe)
CFKs Organic Agriculture Team continue to struggle against many challenges as they work to help to improve the nutritional intake as well as the economic conditions of the Mentawai families who, more than two years after loosing their homes and livelihoods in a devastating tsunami, are still living in temporary IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps. Food sources are scarce in the IDP camps and even if they had the cash to purchase supplies at the local market down in the main port town, access to the market is still difcult due to poor roads, broken bridges and no public transport. CFK have been working to introduce soya bean products such as soya milk, tofu and tempe into the peoples diets to improve the peoples nutritional intake. Soya bean are inexpensive to purchase for families on very low incomes so CFK have been teaching the tsunami survivors to make their own soy milk, tempe dan tofu are quite easy to produce using traditional methods at the house hold level. The the freshly made soya milk is now a favorite amongst the children who will drink as much as we can make. CFK will now plant an experimental soya bean crop to see if conditions on the islands are suitable for growing the soya bean, if so this will further assist the villages as they will be able to grow their own soya beans instead of purchasing them from the mainland.

encouraging families to grow their own nutritional vegetables

For the past 2 years CFK have worked hard to introduce the concept of growing vegetables amongst the Mentawai tsunami survivors who currently have very limited choices in nutritional variety and who, in the past, have not normally grow their own vegetables. CFKs Organic Agriculture Team have struggled to over come many obstacles in encouraging families to establish their own organic vegetable gardens known as F.A.I.T.H (Food Always In The House) Gardens. One of the main problems has been the peoples sense of discouragement in establishing something new while they have had to live in IDP camps for the past 2 years while waiting for relocation to their own land. However, despite the difculties over 50 families have already been trained in organic vegetable growing methods by CFKs Organic Agriculture Team. The most recent to participate in these trainings have been a group of 16 women from Baru-baru sub-village who after learning about soil preparation, organic fertilizer production as well as planting and caring for their seedlings, will soon be harvesting fresh vegetable for use in their kitchens. The enthusiasm of this group of women has provided renewed encouragement to CFKs Organic Agriculture Team to continue to persevere until the nutrition and house hold income of the tsunami survivors begins to improve. It is planned that by March 2013 these families, who are currently living in the IDP camps, will have all been relocated to their new permanent home sites at which time CFK anticipates they will start to establish their own individual family F.A.I.T.H Gardens.

Working Together To Improve Childrens Rights

children participate in improving their own well-being
Every child has the right to survival, development, protection and participation - without discrimination. In order for the children to be active participants in their own well-being, it is important that they also begin to grasp and understand these concepts. As such, CFK have been working with the Mentawia children themselves, using fun activities such as games, discussion groups, puzzles (which are relative and suitable according to the different age groups of school children) CFKs local Mentawai language facilitators have been trained to take the children on a journey of discovery encouraging them to use their god given creativity to be active participants in designing, implementing and evaluating after school activities. All of these activities have a message that lead towards the fulllment of Child Rights. The elementary school children living in the IDP camps on Pagai Utara have designed activities which they hope will improve their school grades including establishing a school library with books and musical instruments.

teachers join training workshops on upholding child rights

Since most children spend a good deal of their formative years in school CFK are working with the Department of Education located on the Mentawai Islands of Pagai Utara & Selatan to build awareness of the importance of upholding and fullling the rights of children. In November CFK facilitated a workshop attended by 15 people representing teachers from the local elementary, middle and high schools as well as staff from the education department. The workshops theme Children are our future generation, lets value and protect their right to make a difference included sessions and materials to introduce a basic understanding or the UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child as well as Indonesian National Legislation on the responsibilities of teachers in upholding Child Rights in the classroom and at school. CFK together with the Department of Education plan to continue to provide ongoing workshops covering Child Rights in regard to Survival, Development, Protection and Participation with a view to establishing a team of ambassadors to advocate Child Rights in the

villages establish early childhood education facilities

Over the past 2 years CFK have been providing activities and advocating the importance of Early Childhood Development amongst the Mentawai tsunami survivors living in the IDP camps on Pagai Utara. In 2012 CFK has been walking alongside the community providing trainings and assistance as they have worked to establish two kindergartens, one is located in the community hall at Km 6 and has already been registered with the Department of Education, classes are held 5 mornings a week attended by children from Ruamonga and Bulakmonga sub-villages. The other is located at Km 10 and held in the temporary Church building is still in the process of fullling the ofcial registration requirements but classes are never the less being held 3 mornings a week and attended by children from Baru-baru, Sabeugunggung and Munte sub-villages. CFK have began to hold regular trainings to capacity build the volunteer teachers in Early Childhood Development, Class Management & Discipline as well as Creative Learning Techniqes. The volunteer teachers are eager to learn more about creative teaching techniques as well as management of the Kindergartens.

Children are our future generation, lets value and protect their right to make a difference

CFK Join Disaster Training Simulation Exercise

with LEARN (Local Emergency Assessment Response Network)

Continuing to studying about delivering ER (Emergency Response) and DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) is an important part of CFKs Disaster Preparation plan, however a lot of class room theory without the accompanying practical exercises can become monotonous. During November, CFKs Training Unit staff were delighted to have the opportunity to join with LEARN (Local Emergency Assessment Response Network) to participate in a 2 week Training & Emergency Disaster Response Simulation Exercise which was held on Nias Island off the West Coast of Sumatra. The training and simulation was hosted by Holyana a local Nias based NGO together with HEKS from Switzerland with local NGOs from North Sumatra, West Sumatra and Aceh enthusiastically participating. Jimmi, pictured left, who represented CFK at the training commented upon his return after learning the theory we then got

to put it to the test by participating in very realistically simulated disaster situations. In the Nias jungle we faced real life environmental, communication and logistic difculties as we worked to fulll our responsibilities as an Emergency Response Team, it was an extremely challenging and benecial experience!

Working with the Government Health Clinic

to improve mother & baby health care services in remote villages

During this quarter, CFKs Community Health Development Sector have been very busy working to improve the health services provided to pregnant women and babies on the Mentawai Islands. In collaboration with the local Government Health Center CFK are facilitating ongoing training workshops with follow-up mentoring to enable the Village Health Volunteers to deliver monthly Mother & Baby Health Monitoring Clinics the IDP camps as well as other remote villages in the North & South Pagai area. 45 Village Health Volunteers attended the November workshop where they learned the importance of accurately weighing and measuring the babies as well as recording the results accurately on each of the babies progress cards which are then to be presented to the Government Clinic midwives so that they can complete the babies examination and immunization procedures. At the next workshop CFK plan to focus on teaching the Village Health Volunteers about better nutrition for pregnant women, new born babies and children under 5 years of age. A special Task Team (consisting of a Doctor, Midwife, Nurse, Nutritionalist & Community Health Promotion Ofcer) arrived on Mentawai in November and they also participated in the workshop. This Task Team is under the National Dept. Of Health and report directly to the President of Indonesia, their roll is to assist Indonesia in meeting the 2015 UN-Millennium Development Goals (MGD). The arrival of this MGD Task Team in Sikakap is an answer to prayer for everyone working to improve the health conditions of mothers and babies and there is renewed hope that in the future the infant mortality rate can be very much reduced on the Mentawai Islands.