HARAPAN PROJECT´S STORY
My name is Carlos Ferrandiz, I am 30 years old and I have been working for the past 7 years as a lawyer in a large law firm, with a professional career ahead of me that many would envy. This year I have decided to quit my job, my family and my friends to move and live in Indonesia, totally devoted to the Harapan Project (Harapan means hope in Indonesian), which my NGO Desarrollo Compatible has been developing on the island of Sumbawa, in the Republic of Indonesia. I am currently living in Indonesia, managing the Harapan Project and seeking funding for it, besides developing several collaborations with orphanages and local schools, teaching languages to children.
This is the story of Harapan Project.
Since I was a child, my parents have instilled in me the importance of helping others, taking me since I was 6 years old to help with humanitarian work, particularly in soup kitchens and homes of the physically and mentally disabled. Therefore, I think that I owe this humanitarian mission in large part to my parents, Carlos and Maria Jose, and to my sister Laura, as they have taught me since I was a really small child to appreciate what really matters in life, health, love, friendship, happiness, and to always appreciate what you have, taking advantage of knowing the tough times and dealing with them through a huge smile.
4 years ago I made my first trip to Indonesia, including the island of Bali, attracted by its culture and the wonderful waves of this country. On this trip, I decided with my friends from La Salvaje (Sopelana) -a bit tired of the huge number of tourists and surfers present in Bali- to do a surf trip for a few weeks on the island of Sumbawa, which is located three islands away from Bali. Sumbawa Island is strikingly different from Bali. Bali is an extraordinarily developed island, both economically and in tourism, where thousands of tourists from all over the world arrive at the airport every day. Yet Sumbawa, despite being much larger than Bali (Bali: 5,700 km2, Sumbawa: 15,448 km2), only receives a few tourists a week. Moreover, the people of Sumbawa hardly know how to exploit its tourism, which could help them leave the extreme poverty in which they are living. All together, the impact and the feelings I received during that first trip to Sumbawa were extraordinary.
In this trip we settled at Lakey Peak, a hotel complex designed especially for surfers with some of Sumbawa’s most famous waves (Lakey Peak, Lakey Pipe, Periscopes, Nangas...) A few kilometres away from Lakey Peak is Hu'u, a community formed by a group of 6 small villages, built over an area of 30 kilometres of roads, and inhabited by about 8,050 people, a 30% of which are school-aged. This population lives in extreme poverty and absolute deprivation caused by their obvious social exclusion and the strangeness of any infrastructure.
One day, as I was getting out of the water after a good surf session, I was approached by a child wanting to communicate with me, but speaking in Indonesian -a language I couldn’t speak at all. I asked him if he spoke English, and he said no, he only spoke a few words. This surprised me greatly because it is the only language they could communicate with the little tourism that exists in the island, and therefore take advantage of the economic resource that tourism could be. So I told him the next day I was going to teach him English, and that he should tell his friends to also come to my classes. The next day I went to the meeting place I had agreed with that child, with a blackboard I had borrowed from one of the few hotels that exist in the area and my books to learn Indonesian from English (I was planning to use the books in the opposite direction). To my surprise I found the whole population of the closest village had turned up, about 150 people among whom were children, parents and even grandparents. Dazzled by these people’s desire to learn, I decided that my life should change to help these people. At that point Harapan Project was born.
For the rest of my stay in Sumbawa, I continued my English classes every evening. It was amazing how each day more and more people were coming to them, excited that finally someone had decided to help.
I have to say that school education in Indonesia is of very low quality, with teachers who mostly have no university degrees or any preparation for teaching. The Indonesian teaching system also has no technical or professional content, so the children’s success in professional opportunities is absolutely non-existent. All the above results in the local population’s total distrust towards the school, leading to the enormous schooling failure and dropouts, as well as significant gaps in education and training of the people of Hu ' u.
This mistrust towards education caused that many school-age children did not attend school regularly, specially those children living in the more remote, rural communities. In addition, many children couldn’t go to school because they were doing inappropriate productive tasks for their age: farming, agriculture, small traders assistants, shoe cleaning, etc. Access to schools wasn’t easy due to the lack of school transport and poor communications, which prevented children from distant villages to get to school every day. According to teachers, many parents showed little interest in their children attending school and, either by necessity or apathy, they preferred them to help with household chores, in the case of girls, or cooperate in the tasks of the field in the case of boys. In addition, we identified quite a number of small businessmen using children for auxiliary tasks, taking advantage of the low cost of their work. Those children were in urgent need of a school to give them a good education to escape from the extreme poverty in which they lived, and that was certainly my role.
Once back in Barcelona, I continued my job as a lawyer but not for a second did I forget those wonderful people, that however hard their life was, they always wore a huge smile on their face. I started to work on Harapan Project, planning to build a school in the village of Hu'u and meeting specialists in the field of cooperation, who helped me find out which documentation I would need to prepare and what steps I should follow to make it happen . All this combined with my busy life as a lawyer, which only just allowed me to devote a few hours to the project, and some days not even that.
During the following years, I did stays of 1 or 2 months every year on the island of Sumbawa and developed language courses and sports activities for the Hu'u children, besides annual donations of school , educational, sports and medical health equipment. Also, I used my visits to the island for gathering all the documentation needed for the project (agreements with the Indonesian government, with the religious community, with local schools, with the local population, with the nearest hospital, building budget, search of the land on which to build the school...). If I wanted to carry out the Harapan Project, I needed to have everything closed and all institutions should be satisfied with it.
So far, it was still just a personal initiative, but I need to form an NGO and have the entire project ready with all the documentation required for the execution.
In 2010, after my return from Indonesia, I met several of my relatives who had been involved in developing humanitarian work in Africa for many years, focused on the medical and health field. After talking it over for a long time, we decided to form an NGO and professionalize our humanitarian efforts. This would also be a good opportunity to unify our medical and educational activities and, so, approach much more ambitious projects. After much work, we finally set up the Desarrollo Compatible NGO.
Everything was ready to move to live in Indonesia, though I lacked a basic thing to start implementing the project and construction of the school: the funding. I met in Barcelona a consultant for business in Indonesia who insisted that, if I wanted to seek funding, I should speak to the Indonesian government, according to him one of the world's richest governments, since there is very little public expenses in the country (no public education or public health, etc.) and the government’s income is enormous (exports, tourism, etc.) I should move to Indonesia, where I am living now, to make good contacts in the government.
A few weeks before my departure from Barcelona, I was contacted by Irazuegi Nagore, a girl from Donosti who was very interested in my project and wanted to cooperate unconditionally with it. Nagore had just returned from a trip to Indonesia and was excited about the country and its people, but also saddened by the great economic imbalance in the country and the poverty in which part of its population lives. The truth is that I was surprised by that girl’s enthusiasm and enormous will. Nagore Today is my right hand on the Harapan project and my agent in Euskadi, and we continue working with all our effort to find, finally, funding to build the school.
I have always believed that dreams are to make them reality, and my dream is to build this school in Hu'u and I am convinced that -although it will cost me much time and effort- someday I will make it true.
http://www.proyectoharapan.org/
HARAPAN PROJECT SUMMARY
Who am I
My name is Carlos Ferrandiz, I am a lawyer, member and founding partner of the Desarrollo Compatible NGO. I am also responsible for the Harapan project, which our NGO is developing on the island of Sumbawa in the Republic of Indonesia.
I am 30 years old and I've been working as a lawyer for the past 7 years. This year I have decided to quit my job to move to live in Indonesia and become totally devoted to the Harapan project. Now I am on the island of Bali managing the Harapan project and seeking funding for it, besides developing several collaborations with local schools and orphanages, teaching languages to children.
This humanitarian mission comes from childhood, and I think I owe much to my parents who taught me the importance of helping others, taking me since I was 6 years old to help with humanitarian work, particularly in soup kitchens and homes of the physically and mentally disabled.
This has made me decide to change the course of my life and devote my time and life to an objective of common interest (such as aiding children) and to stop once and for all from just thinking about money and myself. Also, I can tell you there is nothing in the world that can make me happier than to make a child smile.
As to Indonesia, and in particular on the island of Sumbawa, I have been for the last four years doing stays of 1 or 2 months on the island and developing language courses and sports activities for children in the Hu'u population (between 80 and 160 children depending on the day), as well as annual deliveries of school, educational, sports and medical health supplies.
NGO
Where it was born and who we are
The DESARROLLO COMPATIBLE NGO is formed by a group of doctors and lawyers who have been working voluntarily in social and humanitarian tasks for many years, both in Africa and Indonesia. From our experience in the social and humanitarian fields, we decided to create an NGO to join our medical and educational activities. We have extensive experience in humanitarian and social activities, as well as being highly qualified doctors and lawyers. On the other hand, we have highly trained volunteers who work on improving the NGO’s tools.
Our goals
The purposes of our NGOs are mainly:
- Helping vulnerable and fragile people and communities to overcome this situation in the areas of:
• The coverage of basic survival needs in nutrition and access to drinking water
• Health
• Education
• Basic infrastructure
- Cooperating in the development of their welfare
- Promoting coexistence among them in peace and freedom, respecting their cultures, beliefs and customs
- Performing activities related to the principles and objectives of international cooperation for development.
What projects are we carrying out now
Our NGO Desarrollo Compatible has been developing two humanitarian projects, one in the Republic of Benin (Africa) and another one in the Republic of Indonesia, particularly in the island of Sumbawa.
Ketou Project in the Republic of Benin: Explanation
The Ketou project consists of rehabilitation, expansion and equipping of a medical clinic in rural area of Benin called Ketou.
Benin is an extremely poor country in West Africa, located in the Gulf of Guinea.
Our project supports as a priority actions in the primary care level, under the principles of universal, equitable and sustainable access. Primary Health Care (PHC) has 9 components that must be developed comprehensively to achieve its goal of improving health:
1. Health Promotion.
2. Maternal and child care.
3. Immunizations.
4. Environmental sanitation and water control and treatment.
5. Health and housing.
6. Control of sewage and garbage.
7. Adequate food and nutrition.
8. Prevention and control of endemic diseases and
9. Supply of essential medicines.
Harapan project:
Origin
The origin of the Harapan project takes place in a trip I made 4 years ago to the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia. In this island, one day a boy approached me wanting to communicate with me, but speaking in Indonesian -a language I couldn’t speak at all. I asked him if he spoke English, and he said no, he only spoke a few words. This surprised me greatly because it is the only language they could communicate with the little tourism that exists in the island, and therefore take advantage of the economic resource that tourism could be. So I told him the next day I was going to teach him English, and that he should tell his friends to also come to my classes. The next day I went to the meeting place I had agreed with that child, with a blackboard I had borrowed from one of the few hotels that exist in the area and my books to learn Indonesian from English (I was planning to use the books in the opposite direction). To my surprise I found the whole population of the closest village had turned up, about 150 people among whom were children, parents and even grandparents. At that point Harapan Project was born.
Reasons for the project + needs of Indonesia
Indonesia is a country that has been seriously affected economically and socially during the latest years by the constant natural disasters it has suffered (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, typhoons, etc.) As a simple example, during last October the Merpati volcano, located on the island of Java, had 3 outbreaks; they also had a terrible tsunami that literally devastated the Mentawai islands. Natural disasters are a constant in the history of Indonesia and the lives of local people.
Also, the country's economic crisis has affected millions of workers with the consequence that thousands of children have been forced to leave school to go to work. Child labour is a major problem in Indonesia, at least 2.3 million children aged 10 to 14 years and 3.8 million aged 15 to 18 years are working to help their families.
Sumbawa belongs to the Republic of Indonesia and is situated three islands away from the island of Bali. Sumbawa Island is strikingly different from Bali. Bali is an extraordinarily developed island, both economically and in tourism, where thousands of tourists from all over the world arrive at the airport every day. Yet Sumbawa, despite being much larger than Bali (Bali: 5,700 km2, Sumbawa: 15,448 km2), only receives a few tourists a week. Moreover, the people of Sumbawa hardly know how to exploit its tourism, which could help them leave the extreme poverty in which they are living.
On the island of Sumbawa, in particular in the province of Dompu, is the population of Hu'u formed by a group of 6 villages, built over an area of 30 kilometers of roads, and inhabited by about 8,050 people, of which 30% are of school age. Their main problems are those of the country, but with greater social impact given the characteristics of the area and the obvious social exclusion in which the population is living, particularly considering that this population is foreign to any kind of infrastructure. Moreover, as an area with limited economic resources, the weakness of the local population is accentuated.
Despite having a literacy rate of 91%, school failure in Indonesia is at a 50% dropout for a basic education that lasts six years. The above figures are unrepresentative in reference to the population of Hu'u, where the literacy rate and school failure is in a much less optimistic level. The local population is engaged in working the land and fishing, together with gathering seaweed for cosmetics companies and selling them at a ridiculous price.
Moreover, education in Indonesia is of very low quality, with teachers who mostly have no university degrees or any preparation for teaching. The Indonesian teaching system also has no technical or professional content, so the children’s success in professional opportunities is absolutely non-existent. All the above results in the local population’s total distrust towards the school, leading to the enormous schooling failure and dropouts, as well as significant gaps in education and training of the people of Hu ' u.
The inadequacy of school structures and the educational system to the characteristics of disadvantaged populations, leads to significant gaps in education and training in these populations. The precariousness of living standards in rural areas, the high rate of illiteracy and school failure in the area, as well as the high rate of child labour, place younger adults in Hu'u in a situation of extreme vulnerability.
The first observation that arises is, therefore, that many school-aged children are not attending school regularly, mostly children living in the more remote rural communities. In addition, many children couldn’t go to school because they were doing inappropriate productive tasks for their age: farming, agriculture, small traders assistants, shoe cleaning, etc. Access to schools wasn’t easy due to the lack of school transport and poor communications, which prevented children from distant villages to get to school every day. According to teachers, many parents showed little interest in their children attending school and, either by necessity or apathy, they preferred them to help with household chores, in the case of girls, or cooperate in the tasks of the field in the case of boys. In addition, we identified quite a number of small businessmen using children for auxiliary tasks, taking advantage of the low cost of their work.
If the education situation for children is very poor, the adult education systems are totally inexistent. Among the adult population there are extremely high rates of illiteracy. It is estimated that about one third of these people are functionally illiterate, either because they didn’t attend school at the time, or because at present there is no specific training program dedicated to this segment of the population.
To these reasons we must be add the high incidence of childhood diseases, mainly caused by malnutrition, by the poor health care provided by the health centre, as well as the lack of vaccination among the local population. There are many cases, not rigorously quantified, of children with severe disabilities.
Finally, from the environmental point of view, there is no type of municipal waste collection, so there is a steady proliferation of uncontrolled dumping by the local population. In this sense, the local population is showing a zero environmental education. Therefore, providing education and environmental waste management is absolutely essential to maintaining and safeguarding the natural resources of the area.
In short, the local Hu'u population lives in a context of extreme vulnerability and multidimensional social exclusion, in which there are not many opportunities for development and success either socially or professionally.
Harapan project Summary
Given the obvious educational deficiencies mentioned above, DESARROLLO COMPATIBLE has planned a socio- educational centre with the aim of improving the living conditions of local population, improving educational opportunities for the 2,400 children in the Hu'u population, strengthening the Indonesian teachers’ training and improving the educational opportunities for the adult Hu'u population. In short, it will be a socio-educational centre that shall be complementary to the Indonesian school, working at all times in conjunction with it and chasing the success of both the Indonesian school as an educational partner of the centre itself.
Although the focus of the centre’s work is undoubtedly the education of their school-aged population, it will also provide social, medical and health activities, through an individual monitoring of all families in the Hu'u population. It shall also proceed to assess the vaccination status of the local population. Once rated, we will perform the appropriate vaccinations through the DESARROLLO COMPATIBLE doctors. Also, there will be periodic medical monitoring of the local population, so we can proceed with an appropriate medical treatment properly controlled by professionals.
Harapan project activities:
A-1-Construction of the centre
A-2-Educational Activities at the centre:
- Courses to strengthen Indonesian school: Monday through Saturday from 12:00 to 18:00, aimed at school-aged children. They shall have classes on math, history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology and languages.
- Courses of English, Spanish, French and Portuguese: Monday through Saturday from 9:00 to 18:00 for the entire population.
- Workshops and technical and professional courses from 9:00 to 18:00 for the entire population. There will be workshops and courses on mechanics, information technology, law, economics, medical and health techniques, design and manufacture of "souvenirs", music, theatre, photography, painting, cooking.
- Sports activities from 9:00 to 18:00 for the entire population.
A-3-host activities at the centre:
- The centre will proceed to host completely 40 school-age children (shelter, food, material necessities).
A-4-transport activities to the centre:
- It shall collect and transport 70 schoolchildren both to the centre and to the Indonesian school.
A-5-Food Activities:
- There will be a daily nutritious meal for a minimum of 250 schoolchildren.
A-6 – Legal follow-up.
- Initial preparation of the individual advice files.
- Individual interviews with a lawyer (according to the problem seeking advice).
- Constitution of the complete dossier.
- Monitoring and follow-up of the advised from the beginning of the administrative and legal tasks to end.
A-7 - Health follow-up
- Carrying out an initial assessment of immunization and medical status of the patient.
- Carrying out the corresponding analysis.
- Carrying out regular and systematic follow-ups.
- Control of the patient’s vaccination.
A-8 – Family follow-up.
- Conducting an individual interview on the situation of each of the families of the people in Hu'u.
- Psychological support.
- Individual monitoring in the form of regular listening sessions every 15 days with balance and reformulation of the objectives.
- Mediation.
- Monitoring the relationship of each family.
A-9 - Activities to support employability
- Conducting an assessment of the beneficiary's skills (assessing the level of education, training, work experience, interests ...).
- Development of individual integration pathways, either vocational or non-formal education to improve the educational level.
- Guidance and reinforcement of skills for finding employment.
- Regular monitoring of the beneficiary in the process of finding a job.
A-10 - Social and individual follow-up.
- Listening sessions with pedagogic methodology.
- Groups of personal development and evolution.
A-11 - Raising awareness
- Dissemination and awareness of the activities at the centre.
A-12 - Collaboration activities with the Dompu hospital
- Delivery of medical and surgical equipment.
- Supply of medicines and vaccines.
Feasibility Plan
For the project, we need:
1 .- An initial investment for the first year of €207,600:
- Construction of the centre (€58,000)
- Purchase of a van / bus (€6,000)
- Teaching material (€8,000)
- School and sports equipment (€6,000)
- Wages and salaries (€102,000)
- Operating expenses (€27,600)
2 .- An annual investment of €143,600 per additional year of maintenance of this center.
What we have
In order to build the community centre, we have a budget issued by the Indonesian Architecture & Property Office Solutions, taking into account the particular characteristics and dimensions of the land currently available for construction.
We have agreements with the local schools, the local population, the government and the religious community of Hu'u. They are all satisfied and pleased with the project.
On the government’s side, there is an agreement with Mr. Ilyas Jakariah, S.Pd., director of Education and Sports dept. in the province of Dompu. Though thisagreement he is committed on behalf of the Indonesian government to collaborate in the realization of the social centre, and to grant for free 3 plots of land for its construction, located next to the local school, which can certainly promote the success of the social centre.
There is also an agreement in the same direction with the owner of another plot of land located about 800 meters from the Indonesian school. But the NGO believes that it is more interesting to build on land given by the government, both because this means the cooperation and involvement of the government in this project, and as well due to the proximity of land to the Indonesian school, being 3 neighbouring plots, and so we could take advantage of this circumstance for the success of the students’ attendance at the social centre.
What we need
We currently have a major funding problem, being the economic part our main problem, so the fundraising is our priority right now.
More information on both projects
We have a detailed report on both projects with indication of the performed and future stages, which is available to any interested person, under request.
Where you can follow us
http://www.proyectoharapan.org/
http://www.desarrollocompatible.blogspot.com/
In addition, we have a Facebook page (Harapan Project - Sumbawa Indonesia) http://www.facebook.com/HARAPANPROJECT and a profile (Harapan Sumbawa Proyect) http://es-es.facebook.com/ProyectoHarapanSumbawa where you can track the progress of our project. We also have the following twitter profile: http://twitter.com/#!/ProyectoHarapan
COLLABORATE
We give the best of ourselves in transforming selfless donations by individuals, companies and institutions in successful outcomes.
All help, however small, is always welcomed and very much needed. We welcome economical and personal collaborations. Both of which, as you can understand, are very important for the success of the project.
Financial donations
Whether you are an individual, a company or an institution, you can donate as much or as little as you see fit. The amount is not important, because all of those donations add up.
For these purposes please use the new website wwwproyectoharapan.org
A detailed analysis is available to all interested parties that indicate the completed and future phases of the project.
Credit Card: If you wish to make your donation now, you can do so here, always within a safe environment.
Collaborating member
If you wish to make periodical donations, let us know with what frequency and what amount you wish to donate to the foundation and we will set up a direct debit account in your name.
My name is Carlos Ferrandiz, I am 30 years old and I have been working for the past 7 years as a lawyer in a large law firm, with a professional career ahead of me that many would envy. This year I have decided to quit my job, my family and my friends to move and live in Indonesia, totally devoted to the Harapan Project (Harapan means hope in Indonesian), which my NGO Desarrollo Compatible has been developing on the island of Sumbawa, in the Republic of Indonesia. I am currently living in Indonesia, managing the Harapan Project and seeking funding for it, besides developing several collaborations with orphanages and local schools, teaching languages to children.
This is the story of Harapan Project.
Since I was a child, my parents have instilled in me the importance of helping others, taking me since I was 6 years old to help with humanitarian work, particularly in soup kitchens and homes of the physically and mentally disabled. Therefore, I think that I owe this humanitarian mission in large part to my parents, Carlos and Maria Jose, and to my sister Laura, as they have taught me since I was a really small child to appreciate what really matters in life, health, love, friendship, happiness, and to always appreciate what you have, taking advantage of knowing the tough times and dealing with them through a huge smile.
4 years ago I made my first trip to Indonesia, including the island of Bali, attracted by its culture and the wonderful waves of this country. On this trip, I decided with my friends from La Salvaje (Sopelana) -a bit tired of the huge number of tourists and surfers present in Bali- to do a surf trip for a few weeks on the island of Sumbawa, which is located three islands away from Bali. Sumbawa Island is strikingly different from Bali. Bali is an extraordinarily developed island, both economically and in tourism, where thousands of tourists from all over the world arrive at the airport every day. Yet Sumbawa, despite being much larger than Bali (Bali: 5,700 km2, Sumbawa: 15,448 km2), only receives a few tourists a week. Moreover, the people of Sumbawa hardly know how to exploit its tourism, which could help them leave the extreme poverty in which they are living. All together, the impact and the feelings I received during that first trip to Sumbawa were extraordinary.
In this trip we settled at Lakey Peak, a hotel complex designed especially for surfers with some of Sumbawa’s most famous waves (Lakey Peak, Lakey Pipe, Periscopes, Nangas...) A few kilometres away from Lakey Peak is Hu'u, a community formed by a group of 6 small villages, built over an area of 30 kilometres of roads, and inhabited by about 8,050 people, a 30% of which are school-aged. This population lives in extreme poverty and absolute deprivation caused by their obvious social exclusion and the strangeness of any infrastructure.
One day, as I was getting out of the water after a good surf session, I was approached by a child wanting to communicate with me, but speaking in Indonesian -a language I couldn’t speak at all. I asked him if he spoke English, and he said no, he only spoke a few words. This surprised me greatly because it is the only language they could communicate with the little tourism that exists in the island, and therefore take advantage of the economic resource that tourism could be. So I told him the next day I was going to teach him English, and that he should tell his friends to also come to my classes. The next day I went to the meeting place I had agreed with that child, with a blackboard I had borrowed from one of the few hotels that exist in the area and my books to learn Indonesian from English (I was planning to use the books in the opposite direction). To my surprise I found the whole population of the closest village had turned up, about 150 people among whom were children, parents and even grandparents. Dazzled by these people’s desire to learn, I decided that my life should change to help these people. At that point Harapan Project was born.
For the rest of my stay in Sumbawa, I continued my English classes every evening. It was amazing how each day more and more people were coming to them, excited that finally someone had decided to help.
I have to say that school education in Indonesia is of very low quality, with teachers who mostly have no university degrees or any preparation for teaching. The Indonesian teaching system also has no technical or professional content, so the children’s success in professional opportunities is absolutely non-existent. All the above results in the local population’s total distrust towards the school, leading to the enormous schooling failure and dropouts, as well as significant gaps in education and training of the people of Hu ' u.
This mistrust towards education caused that many school-age children did not attend school regularly, specially those children living in the more remote, rural communities. In addition, many children couldn’t go to school because they were doing inappropriate productive tasks for their age: farming, agriculture, small traders assistants, shoe cleaning, etc. Access to schools wasn’t easy due to the lack of school transport and poor communications, which prevented children from distant villages to get to school every day. According to teachers, many parents showed little interest in their children attending school and, either by necessity or apathy, they preferred them to help with household chores, in the case of girls, or cooperate in the tasks of the field in the case of boys. In addition, we identified quite a number of small businessmen using children for auxiliary tasks, taking advantage of the low cost of their work. Those children were in urgent need of a school to give them a good education to escape from the extreme poverty in which they lived, and that was certainly my role.
Once back in Barcelona, I continued my job as a lawyer but not for a second did I forget those wonderful people, that however hard their life was, they always wore a huge smile on their face. I started to work on Harapan Project, planning to build a school in the village of Hu'u and meeting specialists in the field of cooperation, who helped me find out which documentation I would need to prepare and what steps I should follow to make it happen . All this combined with my busy life as a lawyer, which only just allowed me to devote a few hours to the project, and some days not even that.
During the following years, I did stays of 1 or 2 months every year on the island of Sumbawa and developed language courses and sports activities for the Hu'u children, besides annual donations of school , educational, sports and medical health equipment. Also, I used my visits to the island for gathering all the documentation needed for the project (agreements with the Indonesian government, with the religious community, with local schools, with the local population, with the nearest hospital, building budget, search of the land on which to build the school...). If I wanted to carry out the Harapan Project, I needed to have everything closed and all institutions should be satisfied with it.
So far, it was still just a personal initiative, but I need to form an NGO and have the entire project ready with all the documentation required for the execution.
In 2010, after my return from Indonesia, I met several of my relatives who had been involved in developing humanitarian work in Africa for many years, focused on the medical and health field. After talking it over for a long time, we decided to form an NGO and professionalize our humanitarian efforts. This would also be a good opportunity to unify our medical and educational activities and, so, approach much more ambitious projects. After much work, we finally set up the Desarrollo Compatible NGO.
Everything was ready to move to live in Indonesia, though I lacked a basic thing to start implementing the project and construction of the school: the funding. I met in Barcelona a consultant for business in Indonesia who insisted that, if I wanted to seek funding, I should speak to the Indonesian government, according to him one of the world's richest governments, since there is very little public expenses in the country (no public education or public health, etc.) and the government’s income is enormous (exports, tourism, etc.) I should move to Indonesia, where I am living now, to make good contacts in the government.
A few weeks before my departure from Barcelona, I was contacted by Irazuegi Nagore, a girl from Donosti who was very interested in my project and wanted to cooperate unconditionally with it. Nagore had just returned from a trip to Indonesia and was excited about the country and its people, but also saddened by the great economic imbalance in the country and the poverty in which part of its population lives. The truth is that I was surprised by that girl’s enthusiasm and enormous will. Nagore Today is my right hand on the Harapan project and my agent in Euskadi, and we continue working with all our effort to find, finally, funding to build the school.
I have always believed that dreams are to make them reality, and my dream is to build this school in Hu'u and I am convinced that -although it will cost me much time and effort- someday I will make it true.
http://www.proyectoharapan.org/
HARAPAN PROJECT SUMMARY
Who am I
My name is Carlos Ferrandiz, I am a lawyer, member and founding partner of the Desarrollo Compatible NGO. I am also responsible for the Harapan project, which our NGO is developing on the island of Sumbawa in the Republic of Indonesia.
I am 30 years old and I've been working as a lawyer for the past 7 years. This year I have decided to quit my job to move to live in Indonesia and become totally devoted to the Harapan project. Now I am on the island of Bali managing the Harapan project and seeking funding for it, besides developing several collaborations with local schools and orphanages, teaching languages to children.
This humanitarian mission comes from childhood, and I think I owe much to my parents who taught me the importance of helping others, taking me since I was 6 years old to help with humanitarian work, particularly in soup kitchens and homes of the physically and mentally disabled.
This has made me decide to change the course of my life and devote my time and life to an objective of common interest (such as aiding children) and to stop once and for all from just thinking about money and myself. Also, I can tell you there is nothing in the world that can make me happier than to make a child smile.
As to Indonesia, and in particular on the island of Sumbawa, I have been for the last four years doing stays of 1 or 2 months on the island and developing language courses and sports activities for children in the Hu'u population (between 80 and 160 children depending on the day), as well as annual deliveries of school, educational, sports and medical health supplies.
NGO
Where it was born and who we are
The DESARROLLO COMPATIBLE NGO is formed by a group of doctors and lawyers who have been working voluntarily in social and humanitarian tasks for many years, both in Africa and Indonesia. From our experience in the social and humanitarian fields, we decided to create an NGO to join our medical and educational activities. We have extensive experience in humanitarian and social activities, as well as being highly qualified doctors and lawyers. On the other hand, we have highly trained volunteers who work on improving the NGO’s tools.
Our goals
The purposes of our NGOs are mainly:
- Helping vulnerable and fragile people and communities to overcome this situation in the areas of:
• The coverage of basic survival needs in nutrition and access to drinking water
• Health
• Education
• Basic infrastructure
- Cooperating in the development of their welfare
- Promoting coexistence among them in peace and freedom, respecting their cultures, beliefs and customs
- Performing activities related to the principles and objectives of international cooperation for development.
What projects are we carrying out now
Our NGO Desarrollo Compatible has been developing two humanitarian projects, one in the Republic of Benin (Africa) and another one in the Republic of Indonesia, particularly in the island of Sumbawa.
Ketou Project in the Republic of Benin: Explanation
The Ketou project consists of rehabilitation, expansion and equipping of a medical clinic in rural area of Benin called Ketou.
Benin is an extremely poor country in West Africa, located in the Gulf of Guinea.
Our project supports as a priority actions in the primary care level, under the principles of universal, equitable and sustainable access. Primary Health Care (PHC) has 9 components that must be developed comprehensively to achieve its goal of improving health:
1. Health Promotion.
2. Maternal and child care.
3. Immunizations.
4. Environmental sanitation and water control and treatment.
5. Health and housing.
6. Control of sewage and garbage.
7. Adequate food and nutrition.
8. Prevention and control of endemic diseases and
9. Supply of essential medicines.
Harapan project:
Origin
The origin of the Harapan project takes place in a trip I made 4 years ago to the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia. In this island, one day a boy approached me wanting to communicate with me, but speaking in Indonesian -a language I couldn’t speak at all. I asked him if he spoke English, and he said no, he only spoke a few words. This surprised me greatly because it is the only language they could communicate with the little tourism that exists in the island, and therefore take advantage of the economic resource that tourism could be. So I told him the next day I was going to teach him English, and that he should tell his friends to also come to my classes. The next day I went to the meeting place I had agreed with that child, with a blackboard I had borrowed from one of the few hotels that exist in the area and my books to learn Indonesian from English (I was planning to use the books in the opposite direction). To my surprise I found the whole population of the closest village had turned up, about 150 people among whom were children, parents and even grandparents. At that point Harapan Project was born.
Reasons for the project + needs of Indonesia
Indonesia is a country that has been seriously affected economically and socially during the latest years by the constant natural disasters it has suffered (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, typhoons, etc.) As a simple example, during last October the Merpati volcano, located on the island of Java, had 3 outbreaks; they also had a terrible tsunami that literally devastated the Mentawai islands. Natural disasters are a constant in the history of Indonesia and the lives of local people.
Also, the country's economic crisis has affected millions of workers with the consequence that thousands of children have been forced to leave school to go to work. Child labour is a major problem in Indonesia, at least 2.3 million children aged 10 to 14 years and 3.8 million aged 15 to 18 years are working to help their families.
Sumbawa belongs to the Republic of Indonesia and is situated three islands away from the island of Bali. Sumbawa Island is strikingly different from Bali. Bali is an extraordinarily developed island, both economically and in tourism, where thousands of tourists from all over the world arrive at the airport every day. Yet Sumbawa, despite being much larger than Bali (Bali: 5,700 km2, Sumbawa: 15,448 km2), only receives a few tourists a week. Moreover, the people of Sumbawa hardly know how to exploit its tourism, which could help them leave the extreme poverty in which they are living.
On the island of Sumbawa, in particular in the province of Dompu, is the population of Hu'u formed by a group of 6 villages, built over an area of 30 kilometers of roads, and inhabited by about 8,050 people, of which 30% are of school age. Their main problems are those of the country, but with greater social impact given the characteristics of the area and the obvious social exclusion in which the population is living, particularly considering that this population is foreign to any kind of infrastructure. Moreover, as an area with limited economic resources, the weakness of the local population is accentuated.
Despite having a literacy rate of 91%, school failure in Indonesia is at a 50% dropout for a basic education that lasts six years. The above figures are unrepresentative in reference to the population of Hu'u, where the literacy rate and school failure is in a much less optimistic level. The local population is engaged in working the land and fishing, together with gathering seaweed for cosmetics companies and selling them at a ridiculous price.
Moreover, education in Indonesia is of very low quality, with teachers who mostly have no university degrees or any preparation for teaching. The Indonesian teaching system also has no technical or professional content, so the children’s success in professional opportunities is absolutely non-existent. All the above results in the local population’s total distrust towards the school, leading to the enormous schooling failure and dropouts, as well as significant gaps in education and training of the people of Hu ' u.
The inadequacy of school structures and the educational system to the characteristics of disadvantaged populations, leads to significant gaps in education and training in these populations. The precariousness of living standards in rural areas, the high rate of illiteracy and school failure in the area, as well as the high rate of child labour, place younger adults in Hu'u in a situation of extreme vulnerability.
The first observation that arises is, therefore, that many school-aged children are not attending school regularly, mostly children living in the more remote rural communities. In addition, many children couldn’t go to school because they were doing inappropriate productive tasks for their age: farming, agriculture, small traders assistants, shoe cleaning, etc. Access to schools wasn’t easy due to the lack of school transport and poor communications, which prevented children from distant villages to get to school every day. According to teachers, many parents showed little interest in their children attending school and, either by necessity or apathy, they preferred them to help with household chores, in the case of girls, or cooperate in the tasks of the field in the case of boys. In addition, we identified quite a number of small businessmen using children for auxiliary tasks, taking advantage of the low cost of their work.
If the education situation for children is very poor, the adult education systems are totally inexistent. Among the adult population there are extremely high rates of illiteracy. It is estimated that about one third of these people are functionally illiterate, either because they didn’t attend school at the time, or because at present there is no specific training program dedicated to this segment of the population.
To these reasons we must be add the high incidence of childhood diseases, mainly caused by malnutrition, by the poor health care provided by the health centre, as well as the lack of vaccination among the local population. There are many cases, not rigorously quantified, of children with severe disabilities.
Finally, from the environmental point of view, there is no type of municipal waste collection, so there is a steady proliferation of uncontrolled dumping by the local population. In this sense, the local population is showing a zero environmental education. Therefore, providing education and environmental waste management is absolutely essential to maintaining and safeguarding the natural resources of the area.
In short, the local Hu'u population lives in a context of extreme vulnerability and multidimensional social exclusion, in which there are not many opportunities for development and success either socially or professionally.
Harapan project Summary
Given the obvious educational deficiencies mentioned above, DESARROLLO COMPATIBLE has planned a socio- educational centre with the aim of improving the living conditions of local population, improving educational opportunities for the 2,400 children in the Hu'u population, strengthening the Indonesian teachers’ training and improving the educational opportunities for the adult Hu'u population. In short, it will be a socio-educational centre that shall be complementary to the Indonesian school, working at all times in conjunction with it and chasing the success of both the Indonesian school as an educational partner of the centre itself.
Although the focus of the centre’s work is undoubtedly the education of their school-aged population, it will also provide social, medical and health activities, through an individual monitoring of all families in the Hu'u population. It shall also proceed to assess the vaccination status of the local population. Once rated, we will perform the appropriate vaccinations through the DESARROLLO COMPATIBLE doctors. Also, there will be periodic medical monitoring of the local population, so we can proceed with an appropriate medical treatment properly controlled by professionals.
Harapan project activities:
A-1-Construction of the centre
A-2-Educational Activities at the centre:
- Courses to strengthen Indonesian school: Monday through Saturday from 12:00 to 18:00, aimed at school-aged children. They shall have classes on math, history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology and languages.
- Courses of English, Spanish, French and Portuguese: Monday through Saturday from 9:00 to 18:00 for the entire population.
- Workshops and technical and professional courses from 9:00 to 18:00 for the entire population. There will be workshops and courses on mechanics, information technology, law, economics, medical and health techniques, design and manufacture of "souvenirs", music, theatre, photography, painting, cooking.
- Sports activities from 9:00 to 18:00 for the entire population.
A-3-host activities at the centre:
- The centre will proceed to host completely 40 school-age children (shelter, food, material necessities).
A-4-transport activities to the centre:
- It shall collect and transport 70 schoolchildren both to the centre and to the Indonesian school.
A-5-Food Activities:
- There will be a daily nutritious meal for a minimum of 250 schoolchildren.
A-6 – Legal follow-up.
- Initial preparation of the individual advice files.
- Individual interviews with a lawyer (according to the problem seeking advice).
- Constitution of the complete dossier.
- Monitoring and follow-up of the advised from the beginning of the administrative and legal tasks to end.
A-7 - Health follow-up
- Carrying out an initial assessment of immunization and medical status of the patient.
- Carrying out the corresponding analysis.
- Carrying out regular and systematic follow-ups.
- Control of the patient’s vaccination.
A-8 – Family follow-up.
- Conducting an individual interview on the situation of each of the families of the people in Hu'u.
- Psychological support.
- Individual monitoring in the form of regular listening sessions every 15 days with balance and reformulation of the objectives.
- Mediation.
- Monitoring the relationship of each family.
A-9 - Activities to support employability
- Conducting an assessment of the beneficiary's skills (assessing the level of education, training, work experience, interests ...).
- Development of individual integration pathways, either vocational or non-formal education to improve the educational level.
- Guidance and reinforcement of skills for finding employment.
- Regular monitoring of the beneficiary in the process of finding a job.
A-10 - Social and individual follow-up.
- Listening sessions with pedagogic methodology.
- Groups of personal development and evolution.
A-11 - Raising awareness
- Dissemination and awareness of the activities at the centre.
A-12 - Collaboration activities with the Dompu hospital
- Delivery of medical and surgical equipment.
- Supply of medicines and vaccines.
Feasibility Plan
For the project, we need:
1 .- An initial investment for the first year of €207,600:
- Construction of the centre (€58,000)
- Purchase of a van / bus (€6,000)
- Teaching material (€8,000)
- School and sports equipment (€6,000)
- Wages and salaries (€102,000)
- Operating expenses (€27,600)
2 .- An annual investment of €143,600 per additional year of maintenance of this center.
What we have
In order to build the community centre, we have a budget issued by the Indonesian Architecture & Property Office Solutions, taking into account the particular characteristics and dimensions of the land currently available for construction.
We have agreements with the local schools, the local population, the government and the religious community of Hu'u. They are all satisfied and pleased with the project.
On the government’s side, there is an agreement with Mr. Ilyas Jakariah, S.Pd., director of Education and Sports dept. in the province of Dompu. Though thisagreement he is committed on behalf of the Indonesian government to collaborate in the realization of the social centre, and to grant for free 3 plots of land for its construction, located next to the local school, which can certainly promote the success of the social centre.
There is also an agreement in the same direction with the owner of another plot of land located about 800 meters from the Indonesian school. But the NGO believes that it is more interesting to build on land given by the government, both because this means the cooperation and involvement of the government in this project, and as well due to the proximity of land to the Indonesian school, being 3 neighbouring plots, and so we could take advantage of this circumstance for the success of the students’ attendance at the social centre.
What we need
We currently have a major funding problem, being the economic part our main problem, so the fundraising is our priority right now.
More information on both projects
We have a detailed report on both projects with indication of the performed and future stages, which is available to any interested person, under request.
Where you can follow us
http://www.proyectoharapan.org/
http://www.desarrollocompatible.blogspot.com/
In addition, we have a Facebook page (Harapan Project - Sumbawa Indonesia) http://www.facebook.com/HARAPANPROJECT and a profile (Harapan Sumbawa Proyect) http://es-es.facebook.com/ProyectoHarapanSumbawa where you can track the progress of our project. We also have the following twitter profile: http://twitter.com/#!/ProyectoHarapan
COLLABORATE
We give the best of ourselves in transforming selfless donations by individuals, companies and institutions in successful outcomes.
All help, however small, is always welcomed and very much needed. We welcome economical and personal collaborations. Both of which, as you can understand, are very important for the success of the project.
Financial donations
Whether you are an individual, a company or an institution, you can donate as much or as little as you see fit. The amount is not important, because all of those donations add up.
For these purposes please use the new website wwwproyectoharapan.org
A detailed analysis is available to all interested parties that indicate the completed and future phases of the project.
Credit Card: If you wish to make your donation now, you can do so here, always within a safe environment.
Collaborating member
If you wish to make periodical donations, let us know with what frequency and what amount you wish to donate to the foundation and we will set up a direct debit account in your name.
