Caritasnews magazine

Summer 2008

Water tanks and herbal tea: Caritas Australia Indonesian partners meet
Terry Russell

Caritas Australia's Indonesian partners are sitting in awe. Mamar, a Dayak leader from West Kalimantan, is explaining how his NGO’s program is not just about sanitation facilities and low interest loans for farmers. It’s about building an attitude of saving money, an attitude of valuing formal and informal education, an attitude of helping others, a clean environment, and a feeling of self-confidence.

With fists pumping, voice booming and eyes glowing, Mamar is imploring the audience to believe: attitudes are changing in West Kalimantan and attitudes can be changed anywhere. Mamar is just one of the speakers at Caritas Australia’s annual partners’ meeting, held on 13-15 October 2008. He  details the various fund-raising techniques that his organisation, Pancur Kasih, has developed since the 1980s, and how other Indonesian NGOs can similarly become less dependent on outside donors. Publications from Laz Harfa, a Muslim-based NGO funded by Caritas Australia in West Java, report on Laz Harfa’s income and expenditure, not only to donors but to the general public. These are displayed on one side of the  meeting room as a model of transparency.

A session on program planning is led by Father Suyadi, from Jesuit relief Services. He speaks of the need for local communities to feel genuinely consulted during program planning. His sentiments are echoed by the Director of Caritas Sibolga, a diocesan-based NGO from Sumatra, who says that his organisation not only consults locals over general needs and strategies, but also in the writing of program details. Caritas Australia brought its Indonesian partner organisations together to exchange ideas, and they have done this with gusto.

Ideas are exchanged on fund-raising, program planning, making programs more accessible to disabled people, organisational strategic planning, rural economics and sanitation programs, environmental sustainability, and the organisations’ own needs for improved skills and systems. Representatives from Caritas Australia’s program in Oecussi, Timor Leste, and from two Caritas Australia offices in Australia, also joined the meeting, providing an international perspective. When the meeting ends on the third day, participants fly from Jakarta to South Sumatra to experience an actual field situation.

Another Caritas Australia partner, Pansos Bodronoyo in Palembang, takes participants down the Musi river to an isolated transmigrant settlement, where locals are accessing trainings on sanitation, animal husbandry, home gardening for nutrition supplements, and financial management. Participants are given locally-made herbal tea. One of the visitors looks at the ramshackle huts, built in the 1990s when timber in this area was plentiful. He says, “I’m amazed at how poor these people are. Maybe I need to shift my own program to more remote locations to find people this poor.”

The week has allowed Caritas Australia’s Indonesia partners to share ideas, and also provides Caritas Australia with valuable feedback to assist its own planning in Indonesia. As participants return home to the four corners of Indonesia, and beyond, the challenge will be to ensure these ideas translate into improved lives for Indonesia’s poor.