The Value of Cooperation (GOTONG ROYONG)-Part 1

There is no words can better explain the value of cooperation. Just pictures of the reality can show that. The community in Butiyang has proven the value.

(Note: Cooperation in some cases means GOTONG ROYONG,indonesian word/phrase, i.e. Work together performed by community in term to gain mutual purposes)

First Monitoring & Evaluation

Compacted The Stone One By One



Agust 27, 2006 - Monitoring and Evaluation of project by CP and CF. I must say that I was touched by the progress the community has done. On the most difficult steep dirt road edges, the community has compacted the stone one by one to form the neat and steady base for concreting. The concrete will be the mixture of Cement, Sand and Pebles.

Today, Sunday at 8.15 in the morning we are watching the father, mother and children were crushing, compacting the road edge with stone, sampling of 5 meter by 2 meter wide and 5 cm deep to count the need of the concrete mixture. We were also monitoring and discussing on the accounting procedure and the activity report format.

Preparation of the road edge is quite a challenge for the community. Although they are using the local knowledge wisdom they still need to be guided in some of the steep and dangerous areas. For efficiency purposes, together we were figuring out the most efficient way to do the concreting and time effective as we were also considering that the rainy season will soon arrive.

Coordinator Program :
Asana Viebeke Lengkong

2nd Community Meeting Was Held !

Consensus From The Community



August 10, 2006 : the 2nd community meeting attended by stakeholders, i.e. Kepala Desa (Head of Village) Mr. Nengah Alus, Kepala Dusun (Head of Hamlet) Mr. Made Sania, The Committee of Implementation, Both Facilitators (Mr. Gde Wisnaya Wisna and Mr.Ketut Suartha), Teacher of Vinson Owen School Ms. Kerry Bodeur. Professor Sosiologist, Mr. Charles and the community of Butiyang hamlet and lead by Coordinator Program, Ms. Asana Viebeke Lengkong.

Ms. Lengkong encourage all the stakeholders especially the community to participate in thinking, planning, committing, scheduling to finally accomplish the path construction they all so desperately need. Ms. Lengkong has helped the stakeholders to see the overall benefit through Community based participatory process in developing capacity building is one of the ‘learning by doing’ process to reach our goal towards sustainable development.

Thus the community has arrived to a consensus of the following:

1. The road edges would be 3 meter wide
2. The path will be 2 meter wide on top of stone layers
3. The depth of the top layer will be 5 cm
4. It is realized by all that the preparation of the road edge would take
longer than expected as the condition of the slope is quite steep.
5. The work will be taken 2 times a week and at any convenient time by the
community, however the community cannot make a definite time of final
completion of the path before the preparation of the road edge is completed.
6. The community agreed that the material will be brought to site as part of their
share.

A Letter To Ms. Baynes

Dear Ms. Baynes,

I am Viebeke Lengkong, Program Coordinator of the Road & Educational Program to whom you have entrusted the fund raised by the Students of Vinson Owen School.

The entire series of activities is part of IMPROVING THE COMMUNITY’S LIVING QUALITIES IN AREAS WITH RESOURCE SCARCITY AND MINIMAL POTENTIALS program.




The program is dedicated towards empowering rural communities as they strive to improve their standard of living amidst resource scarcity and socio-economic challenges. The mission of the program is to provide sustainable development to communities challenged by these obstacles. By providing essential health care, education and the construction of adequate infrastructures, my Team and I empower poor communities to guide themselves out of poverty.

Our small project commenced on 30th July, 2006. The initial process started in July 2005.

The process of the Road Construction and other programs will follow the principles of Community Based Participatory Process as part of Sustainable Development program.

I invite you, all member of the School Committee, Members of the foundation, Teachers, Parents and Students of Vinson Owen School, to oversee and join in the process with us at :
http://dusun-butiyang.blogspot.com. I would, if I may, ask you to encourage the students to feel free to ask any questions in regard to the process or any other quiries they may have in mind.

I will take the mandate of the Students of Vinson Owen School with utmost sincerety and will implement 'due process diligent' to ensure transparency and accountability at all time.

Thank you for your efforts in making the world a better place.

Sincerely,

Viebeke Lengkong

Vision
“We do not give, we share, and with this strategy, we empower the community to think and help themselves.”- Asana Viebeke Lengkong

LETTER TO STUDENTS OF VINSON OWEN SCHOOL ELEMENTARY STUDENTS

Dearest Vinson Owen School Elementary Students,

Your support towards sharing with the children and community of Butyang Hamlet (sub-village) of Les Village is received with most appreciation by all the Community and children. Thank you zzzzzzzillion times.

Through the http://dusun-butiyang.blogspot.com which was prepared by our respected Mr. Gde Wisnaya who is going to act as community facilitator; I would like you all to join the journey and the process of the path construction which will be implemented following the Community Based Development principles through participatory process of everyone within the Community of Butiyang Hamlet.



The Community Facilitators: Mr. Gde Wisnaya will be assisted by Mr. Ktut Suartha. Both of them will be guiding the community in the process of the path construction to make sure that the process of construction is going smoothly and will resolve any drawbacks they encountered during the process.

I would be acting as Coordinating Program. I monitor and evaluate the process.

We, both the CF and CP will be working with the community closely together to oversee:

- Transparency and Accountability: that everybody within the community would participate and in consensus to all decision made in regard to: - construction area mapping (e.g. the measurement of the length, the width and the depth of the path), the preparation of the road site where the path is going to be constructed, leveling the site, digging and filling the soil, moving a big stone a side and put the final layers to form the path.
- Preparing working schedule so that we all have a tentative final date of construction
- Minimizing any mis-calculation of the material cost needed, choosing and negotiating with the right suppliers of the materials that is able to send the material at site as the site is almost hard to reach.

As the progress of the process is moving on, I invite you to participate in voluntarily and please do not hesitate to make any inquiries and make any comments as you see fit. Please look through the one of the points in the box on the right-hand site on the web: participation of stakeholders and I promise that I will make all efforts to answer your questions.

I hope that you all have a good holiday.

Best of regards from Bali,

Asana Viebeke Lengkong, Coordinator Program

Villagers of Butiyang Start For Working

Villagers have waited for long time a help to realize their dream having a representative road from their Village to another Village. Because of no good road, they are in fact isolated. Now, there is a little hope that there will be a contribution from a children of OWEN SCHOOL BOSTON some money to realize their dream.



Now they start for working together. As shown in picture, the situation of field is very difficult. Because of the difficulties, they told that they need 60 working days. It's wise to let them plan themselves for the implementation, as we believe that the program is community based program.

Children & Class Room at Butiyang

Spirit of Getting Knowledge



Moving from "under tree class room" to "better class room" as shown at the both picture, the childen showed their spirit to get knowledge. Far away from television, the teachers there realize that the children have good enough brain.



The better class room in fact means the class room without permanent wall, but made from leafs of coconut tree, and without permanent floor.

Enthusiasms of community

First Community Meeting Was Held !

Community Meeting was already conducted at 25^th July 2006 at “Gedung Balai Serba Guna “(Village owned Building for Multi Purpose Activities) of Desa (Village) LES. This is the first meeting in term of the path construction program implementation between Program Coordinator (Mrs Asana Viebeke Lengkong), a representative of Owen School, Boston, Massachusetts Miss. Kerry Brodeur, local authority (Kepala Dusun, Kepala Desa, Camat), NGO LP3B (Mr. Gde Wisnaya Wisna) and Community. As shown in the picture, they talked much about the program included detailed preparations for implementing the program. Enthusiasms of community made the meeting held successfully. The community was explained that the program was community based program. It means the community plans themselves the implementation of the program, design the time reference, mobilize manpower (villagers) to do the job, mobilize the needed materials, and maintenance. A part of the budget is planning to subsidize the worker consumption.

Participation of Stakeholders

                                


Participation of  Community

• To inform the program planning to local authorities (sub-district, village, sub-village)


• Site preparation


• Compacting site


• Construction


• Management and Maintenance

Participation of  Donor/private Coordinator Program

• Material procurement


• Monitoring/Evaluation

Participation of Local authority

• Management and Maintenance

Coordinator Program,
Asana Viebeke Lengkong

PROGRAM BRIEF

PROGRAM BRIEF


Program : Community Based Path Construction/Renovation and Educational Aid

Location: Butiyang Sub-village, Les Village, Tejakula Sub-district, Buleleng Regency, North Bali
dusun-butiyang.blogspot.com

Program Coordinator: Asana Viebeke Lengkong (asanasw@indo.net.id) +62811395188

Implementation Coordinator: LP3B (NGO/Facilitator) & Local Committee for Path Construction for Butiyang sub-village

Time Frame: 30 working days

Allocated budget : Rp. 50.625.000 and funding resource (budget estimates attached)


Background /General Condition of the Area

• Dusun Butiyang Sub-village in Les village is an underdeveloped area It is located in Tejakula sub-district, Buleleng Regency. It is a steep hilly area.


• Total of population of Les village is 547 persons (128 families), consisting of 273 males and 274 females.


• The main occupation of the villagers is farmer


• Education quality is very poor


• Road access is very poor and difficult to access even on foot.


• Based on our site visit in August 2005, it was found that the main priority for the community was to construct a path in which the implementation was once stopped due to financial/material problem.


• Path is the only access which connects one house to another along the hilly Butiyang sub-village.

Based on the above, construction of a path as an infrastructure to support activities of the community is considered as an urgent matter. This program is part of sustainable development using participative approach. This program is facilitated by Mrs. Asana Viebeke Lengkong, which obtains positive response from Vinson Owen School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA through one of their teachers, Miss Kerry Brodeur.

The target community: The villagers of Les village(128 families, 547 people)


Result and evaluationThe direct and specific result expected from this program is improvement of path and that the community can make use of it immediately.

July 25, 2006,
Head of LES Village, signed I Nengah Alus
Coordinator Program, Asana Viebeke Lengkong