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| ADVENTURES IN FOREIGN AID |
Why do people volunteer for Aid projects
I guess there is a drive in some people to want to help and to do something worthwhile in their life. Then there is the adventure or an escape from boredom and the other people hanging over their stools at McDonalds.
The selection procedure for volunteers appears professional and quite demanding.
two interviews and a psychological review. However some six months in the field and observing some of the volunteers I have some doubts about quality the selection process.
Two volunteers that I know of have shortened their contracts and one was removed from the country after running foul of both is indigenous boss and the AVI country manager. The other gave a string of weak excuses for going home and told the country manager he could choose any one .
Of the others that I have met some are doing their job well and others are just muddling through.
At the pre departure briefing for Australian Volunteers International I was with 40 other Volunteers participating in a workshop that included looking after yourself physically and mentally, What does it mean to be an Australian and a long session on HIV and aids. The government expected us to be both ambassadors and teachers as we were all teaching something as well as trying to prevent the spread of HIV and aids.
There was an important section on Foreign aid objectives and in one particular exercise where we had to rank in order of importance the following:-
Human rights
Economic development
Environmental issues
Good Governance
Regional Cooperation
Poverty
Education
Women’s rights
Public health
Infrastructure
Try it yourself before you read on.
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| THE GOAT MARKET AT GARUT |
What was interesting was that most people viewed their area of expertise and experience as the most important. The social workers put human rights on the top of the list, the health workers public health and so on .
The reality is that without Good Governence none of the other issues can be dealt with adequately. Good governance not only refers to our beloved politicians but the pubic service and the legal system without which there would be anarchy and Chaos.
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| THE KITCHEN IN A RURAL HOUSE |
Australia’s aid program presents a photo opportunity of good work and disaster relief to be shown on Australian television to make the voting punters feel good and to give them a reason to justify the large expenditure on foreign aid.
The real reason for foreign aid is a form of intervention in a foreign country to influence and assist the local government in achieving the UN millennium goals and to keep the impoverished members of the country from either migrating to Australia or being a threat to Australia.
The volunteers from AVI are at the lowest level in the food chain of foreign aid and the mantra of the country managers for volunteers is “Do no harm” which is another way of saying “I don’t really care what you do provided that you do not cause problems for me and Australia”
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| NO RUNNING WATER |
Since 2009 the Indonesian government has passed a law forbidding foreign aid organizations working directly with rural communities. They can only work through local organizations. This law was a result of the chaos caused by more than 500 foreign aid organizations attempting to help in Banda Ache following the Tsunami of 2004
To come down from the philosophical and political to the practical here is my story.
I was selected to be a business advisor to a NGO ( non government Organization)
In Jogyakarta, Central Java. My task was to assist an NGO by helping the lowest level village artisans find foreign markets for their handicrafts.
Some six months before taking up the assignment I spent every day searching the web for information and downloading articles relevant to the Handicraft industry world wide.
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| A CHAIR MADE FROM OLD TYRES |
By the time I arrived in Jakarta for the “In country briefing” I was well informed on the professional aspects of my task.
The in- country briefing, led by the AVI country manager, a British national who has worked in Indonesia for over ten years.
The information given was born out of his experiences as well has the knowledge gained
through meetings with Australian embassy staff and major international foreign aid organizations.
We focused on cultural differences between Australia and Indonesia, and the collective way in which Indonesians operate. We were advised not to focus on the goals of our assignment but on the people that we are working with. While I heard the message
My “achievement programming” of many years work experience blinded me to
not recognizing the utmost importance of human relationships in the achievement of my goals. While I was friendly and communicative with my Indonesian colleagues it was only later that I was to begin to understand their thinking and their actions.
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| A HARD DAY AT THE OFFICE |
Following the briefing we al set off by train to Yogyakarta for a month of Bahasa Indonesian language training and to look for somewhere to stay.
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| ON THE TRAIN TO YOGYAKARTA |
Little did I know that I would be come the goat expert from Australia.
Foreign aid to Indonesia
When people think about foreign aid, starving children come to mind along with in polluted waterways, poor health and rampant disease. In Indonesia it is difficult to find Starving children, the waterways are being cleaned, there is a health system that functions reasonably well and most diseases are under control however
Malaria and dengue fever are still prevalent.
In the large cities such as Jakarta, Medan, Surabaya and Yogyakarta the population have access to most of the services that the populations in the developed world have.
In the villages, however it is a different story.
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| GRANDSON BEING INTRODUCED TO GOATS |
My job as a volunteer under the objectives Australia’s Aid policy is to give business advice or build the capacity in the staff at an NGO for training and teaching villagers in rural areas of Central Java ways to increase their income and achieve a higher standard of living.
.Apart from working with artisans who produce handicrafts I was invited to visit a village
where the NGO was brokering an investment in Goats. On that day I was introduced as the Goat expert from Australia an now I have moved from knowing nothing about goats to being reasonably knowledgable.
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| MOTHER GOAT AND KIDS |
On the surface when you visit a rural village in Java it life seems to be the epitome of happiness, smiling faces ,chickens and ducks running around, ponds with fish, well kept rice fields, vegetable gardens and abundant fruit trees.
The smiles of the mums and dads mask their concerns. Money and its management!
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| WOMEN WALKING TO THE RICE FIELDS |
During the year farmers have a period of up to four months when they do not receive an income. Studies have revealed that every 2 months out of 12 each family has to pay medical bills, not necessarily their own. The common practice in Indonesia is that when some one get sick or has to go to hospital money is collected by family , friends and the community to pay the bills.
When the rice crop is harvested and sold (3 times a year) the farmers receive money which they have to manage. Like everyone world wide, if there is spare cash lying around the house it gets spent, just because it is available. In developed countries most people put their spare money in the bank or in superannuation and earn interest from the money.
In the rural areas of Indonesia while most people can borrow money from a range of lending institutions and individuals there are no local banks where village farmers can put their money and earn interest. The interest rate on bank deposits for small amounts is less than 1% annually while the interest rate for borrowing ranges from 8% per month to 90% per month in West Papua.
Twenty years ago there were over 140 local banks plus their branch offices throughout the country. The government has tightened banking regulations following the collapse of many banks due to bad management. Now there are less than 50 Indonesian banks.
The motivation of the government in regulating the banks was largely to protect the citizens who deposit their money in Banks as savings. Now the regulations are so tight that savings banks are not accessible to rural village dwellers.
Faced with this problem, village people store their excess money in assets such as cattle, goats, a motor bike or a truck.
When people need money they sell their asset. This presents a problem as the time the money is required sometimes is when the market price for a cow or goat is low.
The lack of ready cash means that school fees cannot be paid and so many rural children simply drop out of school because of the lack of available money.
The NGO (non government organization) that I am working for developed a website
www.pasarkomunitas.com that provides information to Indonesians about local markets. The website has attracted small investors who want to invest between A$300 and A$ 1,000 in rural projects.
The NGO has become the broker between the investors and groups of farmers.
A legal agreement is made between the parties for the purchase of a female goat.
The loan is repaid in 4 years plus interest of 100%( this represents an annual interest rate of 25%.
Over the period of 4 years the female goat would have produced at least 8 baby goats. By selling 4 goats over the period the farmers have enough money to repay the loan and interest and still have 5 goats left for breeding.
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| NEGOTIATING AN INVESTMENT WITH FARMERS |
We are currently making a film on the best practice of goat farming in Indonesia as a means of educating traditional farmers. One very basic innovation is to get farmers to build a goat house with a roof and an elevated floor so that the goat dung can fall through the bamboo slatted floor and can be raked into a pit and mixed with grass to make compost for the vegetable gardens.
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| GOAT HOUSE WITH ELEVATED FLOOR |
The raised floor allows the goats to be relatively free of Scabies and other insect born diseases.
Later farmers will be provided with information on breeding and full commercialization of goat farming which is currently a subsistence activity. This is a slow process but, bit by bit as simple farmers see how progressive farmers manage the goat and have a cash flow that enables them to pay the school fees then they too will change.
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| The daily task of getting food for the goats |
