Merry X'MAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
TO ALL COMMUNITY ORGANISERS OF THE WORLD! Continue to fight for justice, democracy and human rights for all!!

WOMEN ORGANISE TO FILL WATER WELLS IN INDONESIA

Elin Septiva from IISES (Indonesia Initiative for Social Ecology Studies)organises the women to deal with their water problems in Bogor Indonesia

This is about my experience with IISES on Community Organising. My colleagues & 1 from IISES have been facilitating a suburban community in Cibanteng, Bogor to deal with the scarcity of basic needs. One of problems that they face is water scarcity especially in the dry seasons. Many women complain suffer from this and based on their complaints we are trying to get them together to collectively solve the problem in this area.

Finally we understand that the water scarcity is because almost all the households depend on the water wells as a source of clean water. In the dry season the well experiences drought so the women have to take water from the springs that are located far away from their homes.

There is also water mismanagement. Water distribution is also not fair between upstream and middle/down stream community. The community upstream gets enough water to fulfill their needs such as for fisheries, agriculture and household needs. But the middle/down stream communities lack water supply.

The problem solving involves other parties such as village government, informal and religious local leaders as well as other communities. Recently my colleagues and I have actively facilitated the multi-stakeholder to discuss about the social problems related to water supply.

During the process, some methods that I learnt from our SEAPCP Advance CO course in Malaysia were found to be very useful! For example we use community video tools to help them analyse and understand the situation and condition. We know that this method has worked well as indicated by how the community has started to discuss what should they do, who should go to local government, and other tasks that needs to be done.

But we continue to challenge the people to keep their spirit to plan and organize themselves. Now is the rainy season so most of the community wells in Cibanteng are full with water. Due to this situation, the spirit and motivation of the community seems to have decreased to deal with the water problems.

RIRIN ORGANISES "GOAT COMMUNITY" IN YOGJAKARTA

After the advance CO workshop in Malaysia in June 2009, I conducted a "big" internal evaluation of our "DESA PERDIKAN" project. We "down sized" our ambition to be more realistic and do-able. Currently I am focused on organizing the community in a village in Purworedjo that is known as the "Etawa Goat Village". Etawa is very specific goat and very expensive, and they are protected by the local government.

But currently, there are some buyers from outside (especially from Malaysia, hehehe..! sorry to say ya!) who pursued the villagers to sell the "A-class breed". They bring the goat outside the village, even outside Indonesia, and renamed the goat. If we cannot stop these activities, the village will lose their "specific Etawa goat", their identity and their main source of income. We started working with local villagers to increase their daily income, to prevent them sell the "A-Class goat" outside the village. It is really still the very beginning action stage. Besides that,

Currently we are developing a book of "DESA PERDIKAN JOURNEY". It is our reflection on organize the community to achieve our dream "Desa Perdikan". It will not be a "success story book" but a "story behind our experiences", it is an auto critic of our "foot print", so in the future, other can do better than us.

Sorry, I have not write anything in the blog. May be after we get some improvement in Purworedjo village, I will document it and share it with you.

Ririn, Perdikan Jogjakarta Indonesia