DUSUN BUTIYANG, DESA LES, BALI

The Path Is Finally Completed

2007-10-03T00:33:00.000-07:00

“life is much easier now” said Mr. Sania…..’THANK YOU’

The Path is finally completed and we were invited by the community for a formal hand-over of the path. It was a beautiful morning. We were greeted by the head of Les Village, Mr. Alus, the Head of Sub-village of Butiyang, Mr. Sania, the path committee, the community at large and the children.

In Mr. Alus’ speech, he reflected the process of the path construction and how it had helped the people to realize that working hand in hand had eventually ‘make the dream come true’ and that the power of sharing between both donors and the community has contributed in the improvement of the community quality of livelihood.

During the open dialog with the community and the children, I saw the difference of the community attitude to when we first entered the village 2 years ago. The community openly discussed on their further planning with confidence. The children were happy that they now can run freely up and down along the path from their sub-village to the main village. “life is much easier now” said Mr. Sania “Thank you or is there any thing that is more than the word thank you?” he added in gratitude…

You Asked, We Answered.

2007-06-05T06:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Les Village,

We are glad that you like your new road. It took a lot of hard work to
make and we are glad that we were able to help.Who is kudeta and I'm an angel. Did they fund the road too?

KU DE TA is a name of a very famous restaurant club located by the beach in Seminyak area. I'm an angel is Ku de ta's fundraising group who supported all my program, they have matched your fund to meet all the costs beside the material cost of the road which consist of cement, sand and the food for work which was allocated for your funding. I’m an angel, Give back to Bali would then fund the food (mixed rice and milk) for the children each time we visited them. They also share the operation cost, and mostly they appreciate very much all your efforts to do fundraising for the people to help build their road.
It's been fun watching the progress of the road. We would like to continue to learn about you and your village.

We have some questions for you:

Is it easier to travel with the new road?

Yes, it has been much easier for us to travel on the new road, it make our life easier. We can transport our produce much easier and get a better price from the buyers
Is the road done or are you going to extend it further? We would love to extend our road further to be able to reach our brothers and sisters who live across our hamlet, although we share the same hamlet but we need a bridge to connect us with them
Will you build other roads? Yes if have fund to connect our road with the road to the village to make our access more easier
Do any vehicles travel on the road? Yes, we now can access the road with motorcycle and in emergency we can also use 4 wheel car, but the road is very steep and a bit dangerous, we have to be very carefull when we use the road
How many packs of cement did you actually use? So far we have finished 271 sack of cement and we will need around 50 packs more to just finished the 800 meters. We thought that we only have 700 meters road but apparently the road was about 800 meters long

Enjoy the road and we hope to hear from you soon.
Ms. G.'s Fourth Grade Class

Is the road finished?

We have not yet completed the entire road we originally planned
Will people drive on the road? Yes, although the road is steep and a bit dangerous
How long did it take you to build the road? We started working on July 30, 2006 and up to now we still have about 50 meters to go.

How many people helped to build it?

On average 60 to 70 people and sometimes the children help us if they school holiday

How long is the road? 800 meters

When did you start building it?

July 30, 2006
The kids love looking at the pictures! Thank you
Miss Senesi
Grade 1

Dear Les village,
How much time do you spend working on the road each day?

On everage 4 hours a day, 2 to 3 times a week

Why don't you use machines on the road?

We couldn’t afford having machines because we will need a huge machineries to do our road, we have to build the road edge and that is the most difficult part of our job because the area is steep and dangerous. We have to cut some trees, and digged a huge stone and crushed the stone with big hammer to chunks and put them on top of compacted soil one by one so that it is flat and even.

Are people not working other jobs when they are working on the road?

All of us are farmers and we would take half day off from farming if we are woBrking on the road

How long will it take to walk from one end of the road to the other?

Before the road is built, it took us about 30 to 40 minutes to go down the hill and 1 hour to go up the hill, and now we need only to walk around 15 to 20 minutes to go each way, but of course for people who are not used to hiking, it will take them longer to walk up the hill as they have to walk very slow specially on the steep part of the road.

How many people helped in doing the work?

How much progress did you make each day?

Depending on the weather and how steep the road is in some parts, it can be 5 meters one day and 20 meters another day.

Were the kids allowed to help?

Yes in some areas that are not too dangerous

These questions were asked by two second grade classrooms, Mr. Krane's and Ms. Morgese's, from the Vinson Owen school.

Dear Les Village,
Have you finished paving the road? Will you send us a video of the completed work? We will send you a video when everything is finished, Yesterday Ibu Asana Viebeke visited us with a crew from Metro TV from Jakarta, they tape us working and also while we were having our lunch and also when Ibu read us the questions you asked us. We also have some questions to ask you. How long did it take you to build the blog? The blog was built by Bapak Wisnaya who is our facilitator. How many people were working on the road from the community? Did any children from Les village help make the road? We raised a lot of money and we really enjoy seeing the progress you have been making with the road. Please send us more pictures on the blog. We will check the blog 3 times a week to see any updated information. Thanks again for your efforts and cooperation.
Miss Brodeur's third grade class.

Dear Les village,
We have a few questions for you. Is it really hot in Indonesia?

YES YES AND YES we are used to the hot day but lately it was just too much, Ibu Asana Viebeke told us that it is because of global warming but we don’t understand what that is about, can you tell us what does that mean?

Do you play sports or games after school?

Yes we run, playing badminton, skipping

What is your school day like?

Fun, we love going to school, we love it even more after Ibu Asana Viebeke came and brought us stationeries, school books, uniform, shoes and socks, school bags. She even treat us and took us to the Zoo and we also visited Ku De Ta and had ice cream we never have had before in our life.

Is the road finished yet, and are you excited to have this road?

Is it fun building the road? How long is the road, and how will you travel on the road?
What transportation will you use?
Are you using machines to build the road, or just shovels?

We use shovel and big hammer.
What is the time difference between Mass. and Indonesia?

We have no idea where you are although Ibu Asana Viebeke had shown us the world map but we have no idea about the outside world. Ibu told us that you are 12 hours behind us, but for us it doesn’t make sense.

How many hours a day, do you work on the road?
How many people are working on the road?
Do you have cars in Indonesia?

Yes we do have cars in Indonesia, but in our hamlet none of us have cars; few of us have motorbyke
We would love to hear the answer to these questions. Please send more pictures, we really enjoyed looking at them. Do you have any questions about us?

What are you going to do with the extra money?

We decided to use the extra money to help our 6th grade children to take extra time to do school lesson extra training so that we can pass the national exam. We would be trained by our teacher in her home down in the village. We have to parted from our parents who live up in the hamlet of Butiyang. Some of us would cry of home sick, but Ibu Asana Viebeke told us not to cry but to care for each other and love each other while we are away from our family. She promised that when we pass our exam, she will give all of us present. We are looking forward to that, but we have to work very hard so that we can pass the national exam.
We will continue to check the blog.
Mrs. Pappas' third grade class

Dear People of Les Village,

We think you did a great job on your road. You've been working really hard since you started in August. We're happy that you made the road, and we're happy the money we collected helped you to do it.

There are a few things we are wondering:
How long did you work on the road? Is it all finished or do you have a little more work to do? How many feet long is the road? How many rocks did you need to use to build the road? We need many cubic meters of rocks, and we have to crush the big rocks with big hammer.

How has the road helped your village?

It make us easier to trade because we can bring our produce and our merchandise to the buyer who are waiting for us down in the village, it usually took us 1 hour more to go down in a very steep and dangerous small soil and sharp rocks. Our children can now running down and up the hill with no problem and we are not worry as we used to be anymore if our children would go up and down the new road that you helped us built. We thank you so much

Sincerely,

Mrs. Rizzuti's First Grade Class
Vinson-Owen School

Hello people of Les Village!

How are you? It looks like the road is almost done! Congratulations! Is there anything left to do on the road? How are your lives different with the new road? When you worked on the road, did you still have time to spend with your families? Yes our family would visit us time to time as we build the road, our children are happy because it is now easier for them to go up and down the road. Do the kids like their school? Is there any leftover money from the road? We have decided to use the leftover money to help the education of our children.
Is it easier to get water now?

Yes, and we are using the left over to buy water tank to put in the school vicinity so that it is easier for the children to wash their hands and faces.

Is your community growing larger now?

We are taught not to have to many children, we just hope our children will be healthy and they can get education and through Ibu Asana Viebeke, you have given us the chance to a better life, We thank you.

We are getting ready to go to VO on Skates. What is Skates?The whole school goes to a skating rink to skate together as a community. Does your school do any all school activites like that? We are going on vacation at the end of the day.

We hope the road turns out really nice.

Yours truly,
Mrs. Crowley's third grade class

p.s. Write back soon!

Here are some insights and questions from my class:

We are very impressed with your progress on the road and with your ability to work together as a community to get this road built! Thank you, we are very happy indeed with the road that you helped us built. We are also very happy that Ibu Asana Viebeke and her team trained us to do the road with the concept of community based participatory process. It has given us the real value of working together through learning by doing methods. We learned a lot about material efficiency and use our time effectively. The process and her love also taught appreciate and respect each other among our community and put our efforts in more positive energy, seriously caring for our children education. We want our children to know more of the world, getting more chances to get a higher education, as we have never had the chance to do that in our life. All we know is working on the farm and make ends meet. We love it very much when Ibu brought us and our children some lunch of mixed rice as we rarely consume rice as we cannot afford buying rice. She also brought vitamin B complex and milk for our children. Our children are now looking better and healthy and they love going to school. She brought the local government to look into our hamlet and make commitment to build the school, but we know that it will still take a long time before our school will be added more classroom because there are still a lot of school that need to be built. Ibu said that she will do her best to find donors who would help us built our classrooms.
Looking at the road reminds us of some of the roads we have here in Massachusetts and how some roads are similar to yours, but most of our roads here are very different. We have some questions and can't wait to learn more about the road. We were wondering:

When you finish with the road, will you plan to build another road?

Yes, but just around our hamlet.

How long did you work on the road each day and was it really hot while you were working?

Yes, very very hot
Do you work on the road all day? Do the kids help and when would they help?

How did you learn how to build a road? Do you get paid for your work?

No, we get Food for work and we would use that to feed all our member of the family. We are happy that you would give us the material to do the work. We need the road so much and thank you.
We just studied simple machines.

Do you use machines to build the road? Which ones?

We don’t use machines, we just use our body strength, shovel and big hammer
How many bags of cement did you use?

271 and we need another 50

How is the road helping the school and village?
How did you feel before/during/ and after the road was completed?

Before we had to walk very slowly and carefully as the road was steep and dangerous cause it was narrow and layed with scattered sharp stones, we also worry for our children. Now it is much easier for us to pass through the road.

Thanks for putting our ideas on the blog. My kids thought it looked like a bike path,
See you soon, Yes it is actually a path but big enough for a small vehicle to climb up in emergency. It is impossible to build strong steady road with our capacity. We need a serious plan and heavy machineries to do a steady and strong road for heavy vehicle. This path is more than enough for us for now and we thank you for that.
Mrs. sheenahan
5th grade

Dear Les Village,
-Are they finished with the road now?
-Do they have roads like we so here?

Yes we do have roads like you but maybe not quite like yours, but those road are the main roads built by the government. That kind of road would be the responsibility of the provincial government. The smaller road is the responsibility of the regional government and the smaller smaller road would be the village road and our road would be the hamlet road. The local government has promised us and Ibu Asana Viebeke that they will help us maintain our small road we just built with your help. We would like to build a bridge that connect us with our family across our hamlet and we would like to ask Ibu Asana Viebeke if she would help us to get some fund for the material and we will do the road as self help, the same methods as we built the road now with your help.

-Do they have scooters or cars?

Yes we have scooters, it is actually the most effective vehicle to go around with. Our scooters should have a good power to go up and down the road we built because of the steep and dangerous parts of the road.

-How did they build the road and how did they know what steps were needed to build a good road?

Ibu Asana Viebeke helped us with the steps and she also brought some friends of hers and Pak Wisnaya is an engineer, and together with Ibu Asana Viebeke they trained us the technique to build the road. We have also our local knowledge that we combine with the modern techniques.

-How many people helped? How many hours a day did they work?
-Is it what they expected it to be?

Yes, we built the road just as we expected

-Why is it bumpy?

Because it is steep and it needs a gripper so that it is not slippery

-How many people live in the village?

Around 500 people

-What are the children learning in school mathematics, reading, counting, biology, drawing,
-The class also offer congratulations on a job well done and wishes them luck in anything that may need to be completed.
Miss Ulman

ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS

2007-03-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

Dear Teachers and children of Vinson Own School.

We had another wonderful visit to Butiyang Hamlet, Les village yesterday..... The community is still working on the end of the road about the last 50 meters long in the bottom of the hill closer to the village.

We were greeted by the community who was working on the path and also the children came down from the Hamlet to also greet us....

As we gathered along the finished path just above the path they were working on, I presented them with all your questions I have printed and brought along with me........

Viebeke

It's been fun watching the progress of the road. We would like to continue to learn about you and your village.

We have some questions for you:

Is it easier to travel with the new road? Yes, it has been much easier for us to travel on the new road, it make our life easier. We can transport our produce much easier and get a better price from the buyers
Is the road done or are you going to extend it further? We would love to extend our road further to be able to reach our brothers and sisters who live across our hamlet, although we share the same hamlet but we need a bridge to connect us with them
Will you build other roads? Yes if have fund to connect our road with the road to the village to make our access more easier
Do any vehicles travel on the road? Yes, we now can access the road with motorcycle and in emergency we can also use 4 wheel car, but the road is very steep and a bit dangerous, we have to be very carefull when we use the road
How many packs of cement did you actually use? So far we have finished 271 sack of cement and we will need around 50 packs more to just finished the 800 meters. We thought that we only have 700 meters road but apparently the road was about 800 meters long

Enjoy the road and we hope to hear from you soon.
Ms. G.'s Fourth Grade Class

QUESTIONS FROM STUDENTS

2007-03-18T06:46:00.000-07:00

EMAIL FROM STUDENTS OF VINSON OWEN SCHOOL, BOSTON-USA

Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 6:40 AM
Subject: Road -les village boston schools

> Dear Viebeke,
> We anxiously await updated pictures and completion of the road. Enclosed
> are questions and comments from all of the grade levels in Winchester.
> Please post them at your convenience as the kids are looking at the blog
> site everyday and also await your answers to their questions and to see
> the final product.
> Sincerely,
> Kerry Brodeur
>
> Dear Les Village,
>
> We are glad that you like your new road. It took a lot of hard work to
> make and we are glad that we were able to help.Who is kudeta and I'm an
> angel. Did they fund the road too? It's been fun watching
> the progrss of the road. We would like to continue to learn about you and
> your village.
>
> We have some questions for you:
>
> Is it easier to travel with the new road?
> Is the road done or are you going to extend it further?
> Will you build other roads?
> Do any vehicles travel on the road?
> How many packs of cement did you actually use?
>
> Enjoy the road and we hope to hear from you soon.
>
> Ms. G.'s Fourth Grade Class
>
> Is the road finished?
> Will people drive on the road?
> How long did it take you to build the road?
> How many people helped to build it?
> How long is the road?
> When did you start building it?
> The kids love looking at the pictures!
> Miss Senesi
> Grade 1
>
> Dear Les village,
> How much time do you spend working on the road each day?
> Why don't you use machines on the road?
> Are people not working other jobs when they are working on the road?
> How long will it take to walk from one end of the road to the other?
> How many people helped in doing the work?
> How much progress did you make each day?
> Were the kids allowed to help?
>
> These questions were asked by two second grade classrooms, Mr. Krane's and
> Ms. Morgese's, from the Vinson Owen school.
>
> Dear Les Village,
> Have you finished paving the road? Will you send us a video of the
> completed work? How long did it take you to build the blog? How many
> people were working on the road from the community? Did any children from
> Les village help make the road? We raised a lot of money and we really
> enjoy seeing the progress you have been making with the road. Please send
> us more pictures on the blog. We will check the blog 3 times a week to see
> any updated information. Thanks again for your efforts and cooperation.
> Miss Brodeur's third grade class.
>
> Dear Les village,
> We have a few questions for you. Is it really hot in Indonesia? Do you
> play sports or games after school? What is your school day like? Is the
> road finished yet, and are you excited to have this road? Is it fun
> building the road? How long is the road, and how will you travel on the
> road? What transportation will you use? Are you using machines to build
> the road, or just shovels? What is the time difference between Mass. and
> Indonesia? How many hours a day, do you work on the road? How many people
> are working on the road? Do you have cars in Indonesia?
> We would love to hear the answer to these questions. Please send more
> pictures, we really enjoyed looking at them. Do you have any questions
> about us? What are you going to do with the extra money?
> We will continue to check the blog.
> Mrs. Pappas' third grade class
>
> Dear People of Les Village,
>
> We think you did a great job on your road. You've been working really
> hard since you started in August. We're happy that you made the road, and
> we're happy the money we collected helped you to do it.
>
> There are a few things we are wondering:
> How long did you work on the road? Is it all finished or do you have a
> little more work to do? How many feet long is the road? How many rocks
> did you need to use to build the road? How has the road helped your
> village?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Mrs. Rizzuti's First Grade Class
> Vinson-Owen School
>
> Hello people of Les Village!
>
> How are you? It looks like the road is almost done! Congratulations! Is
> there anything left to do on the road? How are your lives different with
> the new road? When you worked on the road, did you still have time to
> spend with your families? Do the kids like their school? Is there any
> leftover money from the road? Is it easier to get water now? Is your
> community growing larger now?
>
> We are getting ready to go to VO on Skates. The whole school goes to a
> skating rink to skate together as a community. Does your school do any
> all school activites like that? We are going on vacation at the end of
> the day.
>
> We hope the road turns out really nice.
>
> Yours truly,
> Mrs. Crowley's third grade class
>
> p.s. Write back soon!
>
> Here are some insights and questions from my class:
>
> We are very impressed with your progress on the road and with your ability
> to work together as a community to get this road built! Looking at the
> road reminds us of some of the roads we have here in Massachusetts and how
> some roads are similar to yours, but most of our roads here are very
> different. We have some questions and can't wait to learn more about the
> road. We were wondering:
>
> When you finish with the road, will you plan to build another road?
> How long did you work on the road each day and was it really hot while you
> were working?
> Do you work on the road all day? Do the kids help and when would they
> help?
> How did you learn how to build a road? Do you get paid for your work?
> We just studied simple machines. Do you use machines to build the road?
> Which ones?
> How many bags of cement did you use?
> How is the road helping the school and village?
> How did you feel before/during/ and after the road was completed?
>
> Thanks for putting our ideas on the blog. My kids thought it looked like
> a bike path,
> See you soon,
> Mrs. sheenahan
> 5th grade
> Dear Les Village,
> -Are they finished with the road now?
> -Do they have roads like we so here?
> -Do they have scooters or cars?
> -How did they build the road and how did they know what steps were needed
> to build a good road?
> -How many people helped? How many hours a day did they work?
> -Is it what they expected it to be?
> -Why is it bumpy?
> -How many people live in the village?
> -What are the children learning in school
> -The class also offer congradulations on a job well done and wishes them
> luck in anything that may need to be completed.
> Miss Ulman

Time To Celebrate

2007-01-17T06:50:00.000-08:00

Expression of the students at Butiyang was really natural. They realized and found themselves that they are not alone in the world. Education will bring to them the wind of the changes.

THANK ALL OF YOU

2007-01-16T06:01:00.000-08:00

And I tought them to sing and they said to THANK ALL OF YOU..... and on the way home.... noticing how anthusiast a community built their path, the access to a better future..............

Closer To The Students

2007-01-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

Today we also introduce our new way teaching the children to understand about learning the interesting way by watching an animation short movie on how to love their invironment......

Monitoring 10 January 2007

2007-01-10T06:19:00.000-08:00

Today we helped out the Butiyang Community finishing up the last 30 meters upper end of the path. They still need to do a finish touch the lower end of the path. Hopefully by February everything will be completed.

A Step Ahead

2006-11-10T22:08:00.000-08:00

Hardwork of the people bear a nice road. Since two months ago the people of Hamlet Butiyang work for the road, which will connect their on the top of Hill isolated Hamlet to the Village LES. A very difficult part of the road was at behind, now they still only about 400 m rest to be done.

26 oct 2006 the third monitoring was done by the project coordinator , mrs Asana Viebeke Lengkong,and her team accompanied by NGO team (LP3B) from Singaraja, and an official from District Education Section.

The Value Of GOTONG ROYONG -- Part 2

2006-09-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

Local Wisdom

Every community has it's own local wisdom. In Butiyang, Gotong Royong seems to be a real local wisdom, and it will appears when situation needed.

Now, the challenge of Butiyang's people is to realize the 700 meters footpath. This path laid from Desa Les to their about 300 meters above sea-level located Territorial (Dusun Butiyang). There are no alternatives solutions, but work and work.

Therefore, the job description mapped very clear. Some of them bring the big stone away , compacting stone, laying the cement, etc. While the Men work, the women cook and prepare the food/consumptions.

The Value of Cooperation (GOTONG ROYONG)-Part 1

2006-08-30T06:43:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-29T05:45:00.000-07:00

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 !

2006-08-12T19:26:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-10T04:06:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-06T03:23:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-05T02:37:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-03T23:46:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-02T00:11:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-01T23:04:00.000-07:00

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

Introduction of Dusun Butiyang

2006-07-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

Dusun Butiyang- an isolate sub-village !

Butiyang is named of sub-village in Desa (Village) LES. Sub-village called DUSUN in Bali. Because of its location at a higher place, and no "actually" road connect them to other Dusun or even to its Desa, make the people in Dusun Butiyang have difficulty to get socialization. For long time, the people there have no communication to other people in Desa Les, eventhough the didn't had a school for their children.

Just started at 6 years ago, they tried to make their own school for the children, instead of let the children without education or walked down to Desa. At the beginning, they didn't had a class room. So the children started under the tree.

Kepala Desa there had a big effort, just tried to find help for the children. Last year, Asana Viebeke Lengkong with "local" NGO named LP3B Buleleng ( Agency For The Assessment and Empowerment of Bali's development) in District Buleleng tried to bring them some books and foods. They just wanted to give the children there sign, that other people cared them.

Now, in very good connection through Kerry and her school institution in Boston, the Children in Boston have a chance to help children of Butiyang. They collected money to help Butiyang, and the money will be used to make a "better" road, so that Dusun Butiyang will easier to be reached.

The funding of the project is also contributed/shared by I'M AN ANGEL - Ku De Ta, Bali; Give Back to Bali, Australia.

Sun hopefully will shine there, the children will smile, and there will be a brighter future there.

Thanks for the children school in Boston.