7/29/2019 CFK Newsletter Oct-Dec 2012 Eng

1/4

Village Planning Workshopsn participation with the community membersAs 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 developtheir 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 first Village

Action Planning Workshops ever to be

held at the sub-village level, in the past

the Village Head made all the planningdecisions with out the participation of the

village members. However, after one

year of being active in implementing

their village plans, the village 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 anticipatedthe opportunity to share their aspirations

for the development of their village.

The first 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

difficult 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 anincreased 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 formothers 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.

QUARTERLYOctober - December 2012NEWSLETTERPARTNERING with theCOMMUNITYto TRANSFORM theirLIVES through HOLISTICcommunity development & disaster response.

7/29/2019 CFK Newsletter Oct-Dec 2012 Eng

2/4

encouraging families to grow their own nutritional vegetablesFor the past 2 years CFK have worked hard to introduce the concept of growing

vegetables amongst the Mentawai tsunami survivors who currently have very

imited 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 difficulties 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 holdncome 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.

CFKs Organic Agriculture Teams Perseveranceintroducing 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 (InternallyDisplaced 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 difficult 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 incomesso 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.

7/29/2019 CFK Newsletter Oct-Dec 2012 Eng

3/4

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

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 fulfillment 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.

Working Together To Improve Childrens Rightschildren participate in improving their own well-being

teachers join training workshops on upholding child rights

villages establish early childhood education facilities

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 fulfilling 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

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 CFKhas 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 fulfilling the official 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.

7/29/2019 CFK Newsletter Oct-Dec 2012 Eng

4/4

CFK Join Disaster Training Simulation Exercisewith 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 withLEARN (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 difficulties as we worked

to fulfill our responsibilities as an Emergency Response Team, it was

an extremely challenging and beneficial experience!

Working with the Government Health Clinicto 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 Volunteersattended 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 Officer) arrived

on Mentawai in November and they also participated in the workshop. This Task Team is under the National Dept. OfHealth 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.