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Index:

Community Development to Self Reliance Seminar and Northern Sumatra Region Partner Meeting

Launching Safe Lake Toba Program

Strategic Plan Review Workshop

One Day Seminar in 2007 Annual Partner Meeting

POG (Passing on the Gifts) in Pantai Gemi, Langkat

POG (Passing on the Gift) by CBO ‘Harapan Jaya’

Community Development to Self Reliance Seminar
and Northern Sumatra Region Partner Meeting

Parapat, 22 January 2008

Along with Safe Lake Toba Project Launching, on Tuesday, 22 – 25 February 2008, Heifer Indonesia conducted Seminar on Community Development to achieve self reliance and partner meeting for Northern Sumatra Region in Hotel Patra Jasa, Parapat. These 4 (four) days activities participated by project partner’s and representative project participants.

Community Development to Self Reliance Seminar

This one day seminar aims to ignite the spirit of project partners and participants and renew their commitment  to keep going with their ultimate goal “ self reliance”. Self reliance will lead the community to achieve self confident, self employed and self esteem that leads the community to lock their poverty in the past and preparing themselves arrange their own brighter future. Developing a self reliance community isn’t as simple as it sound, it means hard work and strong commitment. Is it a challenge or opportunity for assistance? Heifer Indonesia let the project partner and participants find their own answers through this seminar.

The speakers  ; Country Director of Heifer Indonesia, Henri Sitorus, Prof. Dr. Bungaran A. Simanjuntak from State University of Medan, Ir. Djati Wicaksono Hadi, MSi ( Head of RE Siboro (Head of Women and Human Resources Empowerment from Samosir district) and Irwansyah Hasibuan, and Fery Hasibuan from BPRPI, mostly talk about a community development paradigm based on their own experience working with the community.

Bungaran, an anthropologist, presented his paper about Community Development based Culture and Self Reliance. Developing community should be supported by three components; intellectual capital, social capital and wisdom capital, not merely financial and human capital. He also noted that community should be placed as both the subject and actor in development and formulating their own goal.

VBHCD ( Value Based Holistic Community Development), as a key to sustainable development shared by Henri Sitorus. Once again, Henri urged PPs and project participant to push themselves move forward. By promoting VBHCD, Heifer has helped more than seven million impoverished families in 128 countries lift themselves out of poverty and achieve self-reliance.

Northern Sumatra Region  Partner Meeting

January 23 – January 25, 2008

During the partner meeting, project partner, representative project participants together with  Heifer’s staffs Indonesia were discussing and analyzing the  SWOT ( Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat) that partners face to create a sustainable self-reliance community. Each project partner share their experience working with the community while project participants express their experience caring for their livestock and how those gift and trainings given had changed their life either their vision.

In this chance, Supriyono, PME manager, together with the partner analyze the PSRP (Participatory Self Review and Planning) process to achieve 3 (three) level impacts. “ Action without reflection is pointless, action without reflection is waste time, action with reflection gives direction”. PSRP and VBHCD can be separated from the process of Development to create a just and sustainable community.

HIV/AIDS issue, Youth, Gender and Agro-ecology also discussed in this meeting. Chu Dil from PKBI talks about HIV/AIDS, Jolinda from Soripada express her ideas on Gender, Tugiono from Pansu, share his experience and expertise in implementing non-organic farming, and Hamdan from LTA enthusiastically talks about Youth and its role in community development. To maintain and improve the partnership, 5 (five) action plan has been drafted at the end of meeting.

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Safe Lake Toba Program Launching

Parapat, 22 January 2008

Lake Toba, the largest lake in Indonesia and second largest in Asia was one key tourist destination and source of livelihood of people living surrounding it. Unfortunately, as the environmental condition had rapidly decreasing in the last decade due to destructive natural resources exploitation (such as logging, unwise chemical inputs for farming, and inappropriate management of floating nets fishing), the beauty of Lake Toba has faded away. There's not much tourism activities in this Lake lately. Many hotels and resorts were closed down. Poverty is also rampant in this area.  In Samosir island located at the heart of Lake Toba , as reported by the government of Samosir District,  there are about 66.078 from 130.078 of the Samosir island residents  living under poverty  line from the  , 83 %  of these were farmer.

 Responding to this situation, Heifer  International Indonesia has developed “Safe Lake Toba " (Sustainable Upland Agriculture and    Indigenous Farmers Empowerment toward  Food Security and Lake Toba Conservation in Indonesia ) Project. Located in Parapat, on Tuesday, 22 January 2008, Heifer International Indonesia officially launched this project. This event was enthusiastically attended by key stakeholders of Lake Toba conservation and community development, some of them are the Governor of North Sumatra Province  represented by , Regent/Head of District  of Samosir District;  government representative of other 6 Districts located in Lake Toba conservation area; project partners and NGOs.

This three-year project , as explained by Henri Sitorus--Country Director of Heifer International Indonesia--in his speech at the launching ceremony,  will empower 300 indigenous farming families in the  Lake Toba Conservation area to improve their livelihoods. The project aims to improve sustainability by integrating upland farming with livestock raising and conservation of the Lake Toba watershed. Participants will receive pigs (200 families), goats (100 families), fingerlings (150 families), beehives (15 families) and horticulture supplies. An additional 600 families will benefit from pass-on. The project will also provide both non-technical and technical trainings.

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Strategic Plan Review Workshop of Heifer Indonesia
August 27-29, 2007

“We highly appreciate and promote the way Heifer Indonesia has been assisted the communities and the triadic partnership based on values which had resulted impacts.” express Hari Susanto, Head of Sub Cooperation Division of Human Resources Development Secretariat of Ministry of Agriculture Republic Indonesia  in his presentation in Strategic Plan Review Workshop of Heifer International Indonesia, August 27-29, 2007. Mr. Hari had also visited a project site of Heifer Indonesia.

Opened by Henri Sitorus, Country Director of Heifer Indonesia, the first day of Strategic Plan Review Workshop of Heifer Indonesia fulfill with many sharing and inputs from the government officials, such as Ministry of Agriculture as the ministry with whom Heifer Indonesia signed the MoU, the official of Livestock Service of North Sumatera Province and the official of Social Welfare Services of South Sumatera Province about the poverty condition of Indonesia, livestock and their impression of Heifer programs. They also mentioned about the needs of the government agencies through Heifer program, especially in coordinating the government’s program with Heifer’s in order to implement the program effectively in mutual coordination.

One of them is the impression of Head of Social Welfare Services of South Sumatera whom co-work with Pandu Insani –a Heifer Indonesia project partner in South Sumatra. The Social Welfare Services of South Sumatera Province with Pandu Insani had developed  a video about a program of Heifer Indonesia in South Sumatera. They try to introduce the program to the other development agencies or organizations. Recently, they used it in channeling with Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) of profit sector in South Sumatra.

As representatives from A/SP Program of Heifer International, Dr. Padma Singh, Director Program of A/SP Program had also give throughout explanation about the A/SP, Heifer values and the 5 step Values Based Holistic Community Development.

In the last session, partners from each region of Heifer Indonesia programs shared their experiences and their thoughts about best practices and lessons learn of their program with Heifer.

One of them is the impression of  Pendi from PARAS –a project partner of Heifer Indonesia in North Sumatera. He said that the important process of Heifer program in our program sites is when the community became aware and re-finds their own values and then wants to share it with the other communities. On the other partner, the cornerstones had inspired the friends of Yabima (a project partner in South Sumatera) in assisting the communities as subjects.

“By conducting more dialogs with them, we are treating them as the subject, not as objects so they will move forward by themselves. “express Carlo from Yabima.

“For Aceh, we have special condition after the tsunami. We are facing so many challenges with so many grants that have been given by the other humanitarian organizations to the communities. But now days, after most of the INGOs had left Aceh, the assisted communities felt that Heifer program and its values is the one that will keep on going towards their better future.” said Mahli from PAPAN-a project partner of Heifer Indonesia in Aceh.

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One Day Seminar in 2007 Annual Partner Meeting

“Develop a Sustainable Community Development Strategy”

The first day of 2007 Annual Partner Meeting, Heifer International Indonesia held a one day seminar with topic;  “Develop a Sustainable Community Development Strategy”.

The one day seminar June 11, 2007 opened by Secretary of Human Resources Development of  Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) Republic Indonesia Ir. Herniati, MSc in Sumatra Village Resort Medan. While the Annual Partner Meeting of Heifer International Indonesia will be continued to June 15, 2007.

The one day seminar will be divided into 3 panel sessions with sub topics: (i). Learning from Rehabilitation Program of Aceh–Nias, (ii). Sustainable Strategy of Community Development, (iii). Partnership and Multi stakeholder of Community Development.

The resources persons are; Dr. Ayi Kusmayadi from Food Security Agency of Ministry of Agriculture Republic of Indonesia, Head of Cooperation Sub Division of Human Resources Development of  MoA Mr. Hari Susanto, and Head of Program Sub Division of Bureau of International Cooperation MoA.

The other resources persons are Director of local NGO Yayasan Keluarga Mandiri Pedesaan (YKMP) Mr. Naziri, Head of Goat Research Sei Putih Dr. Simon Ginting, Director of local NGO Yayasan Pengembangan Kawasan (YPK) Mr. T. Irwansyah, Mr. T. Kamal Fasya (sociolog), Leader of Aliansi Jurnalistik Indonesia (AJI) NAD Mr. M. Hamzah, and Country Director Heifer International Indonesia Henri Sitorus.

Hopefully from the seminar, sharing and learning experiences from the community development multi stakeholder could deliver innovative ideas in identifying effective community development strategies for the good of sustainable social-economic transformations of the rural communities.

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POG (Passing on the Gifts) in Pantai Gemi, Langkat

“Correction does much, encouragement does more”

In August 2007, Heifer Indonesia collaborated with BPRPI (Badan Perjuangan Rakyat Penunggu Indonesia)-a project partner of Heifer Indonesia- distributed 300 goats to 75 original families in Langkat District, North Sumatra, members of BPRPI. Besides goats, they also received ginger seedlings, bees, fish pool, kitchen gardening and supports to build a CTC (Community Training Centre) in Pantai Gemi Village.

Before they received those goats, they have already been trained Cornerstones, and other themes such as animal health, credit union, CBOs management, gender, etc.

In March 6, 2007, the original families had succeeded to pass on their 144 goats to another 36 pass on families.

“Since the beginning of the program, our priorities is to encourage and to enhance self-reliance from all the CBOs’ members, so they could understand and aware that they are not the object of the program. They are the subject itself. They are the subject that should be responsible in increasing their own life. Outside inputs not always needed if they knew their ability and their resources. If the beneficiaries did not know their own potential resources and had no willed to use it, then any kind of inputs will be useless.” explain Ferry, from BPRPI.

The ceremony opened by few of traditional Malay cultures in welcoming guests. The first one is Pencak Silat, a traditional Malay karate as symbol of community braveness in protecting relatives and friends from evil intention. Visitors from Heifer included Dr. Padma Singh (Program Director of Heifer Asia South Pacific), Henri Sitorus (Country Director of Heifer International Indonesia), Tengku Rivanda and Supriyono (Heifer Indonesia team members).

Dr.Padma felt so glad to be in such rich traditional values, “Because this is inline with mission of Heifer International to end hunger and poverty by values, values that Heifer gathered from the communities.” expressed Dr. Padma.

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POG (Passing on the Gift) by CBO ‘Harapan Jaya’

The program has been running for 14 months and had supported 117 goats to 30 original families in CBO Harapan Jaya. On 29 May 2007, Harapan Jaya had succeeded to pass on 30 goats to 10 pass on families.

The POG ceremony opened by Country Director of Heifer International Indonesia, Henri Sitorus with Country Director of Heifer International, China Chen Taiyong; Head of a Goat Research Centre Sei Putih, Dr. Simon Ginting and Director of Pansu, Sabirin.

A deeper impression has been sensed from original participants families whom given the livestock in pregnant condition –this will enhance Passing o the Gifts in the pass on families-. All the CBOs assisted by Heifer and Pansu have been done the integrated farming.

“I believe, in the future Pansu and its community will grow faster if they could maintain the program of integration.” Express Chen Taiyong.(Norma)

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