JOIN US ON A TRANSFORMATIVE JOURNEY AS WE STRIVE TO PROVIDE CLEAN AND SAFE DRINKING WATER AND EDUCATION TO THE CHILDREN OF LAINDATANG.
Together, we can positively impact their lives and help them build a brighter future. Let’s illuminate the path to health, education, and prosperity in rural Indonesia.
Perkenalan Laindatang? Kami telah bekerja di sana selama lebih dari setahun. Orang-orang di sini sudah seperti keluarga bagi kami. Ini adalah salah satu wilayah termiskin yang pernah kami lihat. Di sini, tidak ada air, toilet, listrik, atau akses terhadap perawatan medis. Masyarakat kelaparan, dan sebagian besar anak-anak kekurangan gizi dan kondisi kesehatannya tidak baik.
Here, washing is a luxury, possible only once or twice a month. It’s a highly rural and impoverished area. We’ve already accomplished a lot, thanks to support from Rotary Australia. In early 2024, we must do even more, no matter what it takes.
Phase #1 – Completed We repaired a road for over 6 kilometers to enable trucks, drilling machines, and our teams to reach the village. We constructed two bridges. We built two massive reservoirs and installed the first proper sanitation facilities in the village. We set up rainwater filtration and collection systems, pipelines, and hand pumps, provided training, treated residents, fought against malaria, and implemented a primary healthcare program, among other actions.
Phase #2 of the Program – Beginning This January
Fair Future aims to start building several reservoirs and proper sanitation facilities, particularly in the area of the school where 78 children come every day. This initiative is part of the program we initiated last year, which is dedicated to the entire village: #WaterConnection – Laindatang Site.
Fair Future will construct three reservoirs (20,000 liters in total), four toilets, eight handwashing stations, eight sinks, and a water point for all residents of the region. Everyone will be able to fill their jerry cans and containers without having to walk for hours or an entire night to fetch a few liters of unsafe water.
In this Phase #2, the program also includes the following activities:
Organizing monthly nutritional events, preparing nutritious meals for the 80 children, offering courses on healthy eating and cooking for the village women, and more.
Establishing a large community garden to promote healthier and balanced nutrition. Believe it or not, most people here have never tasted most local vegetable varieties.
Conducting workshops on healthy living with various modules for teachers, children, and their families. These workshops will cover basic hygiene concepts, such as toilet use and handwashing, and implement our usual health prevention campaigns to combat infectious diseases and reduce mortality.
Phase #3 of the Program – The Most Crucial Phase
If we can gather sufficient funds (and we will), Fair Future is determined to provide access to electricity for the school through a significant solar installation of 2500 watts. The critical aspect of this phase is that we already have this installation, with 90% generously donated by SMART ENERGY TECH. This installation will provide lighting, power to two or three computers, and a printer. It will also supply the submersible pump required for the deep drilling.
Crucially, we must provide access to clean water through a deep well approximately 480 meters from the school. We discovered a water source at about 55 meters deep in this location. This will greatly reduce families’ dependence on rainwater, especially during the dry season, which lasts nearly nine months a year. Water becomes extremely scarce during this time, forcing children and women to walk for hours to fetch a few liters of water. It’s a daily struggle for survival.
For the entire #WaterConnection – Laindatang Site project, we plan a four-month implementation period on-site in extremely challenging conditions, but we’re used to it. Alex from Fair Future will be on-site 100% of the time throughout the project. Other on-site team members will include Primus, Ino, Elthon, Rinto, Adi, and about ten people, along with around thirty volunteers, the villagers themselves, who will work with us to learn how to build these infrastructures and eventually maintain them.
Once Phases #2 and #3 are completed, Fair Future wants, as we did in Mbinudita, to turn the Laindatang school into another “Center for Clean Water and Healthy Living” for the entire region. We hope that malnutrition, infectious diseases, and health problems related to lack of water, absence of toilets, and poor hygiene will decrease and eventually disappear in the medium term.
Impact of this Program
It is essential to emphasize the urgency of this initiative for our medical team. The health situation on-site is dramatic: more than 50% of the children in this village suffer from stunted growth due to a lack of water, food, and hygiene. Additionally, the malaria rate is the second highest in Indonesia, after the Mahu region where we are already deeply involved in medical programs. We firmly believe that we can change the situation. As we often say, “Clean water is the cheapest medicine“.
To conclude
To achieve this, we need your support. You can help by funding one or more of the activities, contributing to the construction of reservoirs, installing solar equipment, creating handwashing points, building toilets, deep drilling, or any other form of support.
Today, we must quickly move forward with Phases #2 and #3 of this #WaterConnections project for the residents of this extremely rural village and all the children who live there. We cannot achieve this without your help. So, how about we all roll up our sleeves and tackle this challenge together
Alex Wettstein – Fair Future Foundation medico-social camp in East Sumba – Rumah Kambera, Lambanapu, January 11th, 2023.
