Now a newsletter from Lombok. It wasn’t quiet at this site. We make a long report, but sorry to say, it is too long to translate in English. So for our international friends we tell in this newsletter what happened.
Now a newsletter from Lombok. It wasn’t quiet at this site. We make a
long report, but sorry to say, it is too long to translate in English.
So for our international friends we tell in this newsletter what
happened.
A lot of things were going on if were are in Holland or not, the people don’t forget us and the donations still coming. We are so grateful to you all.
A small numeration of all the great actions so far:
- Maria and Jan Meulendijks decide again to do a donation instead of sending Christmascards. That is also a beautiful Christmas idea.
- Just like we mentioned last year, we have this family were the father is to old to take care of the children. Also this year the same sponsor is going to take care that the children get one good meal a day.
- In January Theo Kleeven and Sjan van den Broek are visiting us. But the biggest is they don’t come with empty hands. Theo and Maria Meuldenijks working together at Housing cooperation Arcen en Velden. Soon they will merge with another company, but before that time they want to do a Christmas action. The results are great. We get a cheque of 3.000.000 ruphias.
- But also emotional hard things. We get the message that Jan Kleeven, owner of restaurant “In den Engel” has died. We knew he was sick, but never thought it would go so quickly. Then we read the below lines in his obituary:
Instead of flowers, we kindly ask you to donate a gift for our two charities in Lombok.
This makes us so grateful! The foundation Impian Anak from the Family Geurts and Proyek Kampung Loco get a beautiful donation. But Carla Kleeven, the wife of Jan, tells both charities that she wants to support a child in both of the organisations. This are the moments we realize how good the world is.
- This week suddenly we see on the bank account that Rob and Ineke Hegeman again gave us a beautiful donation.
- There are also some sponsors who already paid for the children. But don’t you worry. We send you all a personal mail with the new picture of the children. Maybe there is also a change of school and amount. But we will let you all know by personal mail.
Then the news from Lombok:
- First we control the financial books. In the mean while Cuk and Eful did a computer course. The result is that the complete financial information is also at the laptop. All receipts and vouchers are correct, likes usually. This man is doing a great job. We are really proud of him. That is why we decide to do an investment Cuk gets a new laptop. The old one is used by the kids. The new one will be only for the staff from the project.
- Then the first meeting. In general everything goes fine. We add some extra things, like a support from the project for women who have to deliver their baby in hospital. It appears that still 2 out of 10 women dies, be course they cannot afford to have their baby in hospital.
Their will be an information box in the kampung. Many people don’t know when we take pictures or when they have to subscribe their children to the project. The staff will take care of that.
If it was for us, we would love to start the English lesson again and a course to write and read for the parents. But we have no location. We are going to talk to the Kepala Kampung (the head of the village) if he knows a location. We have the money to build a small building but not enough to buy some land. So the kampung has to do something.
Also we talk quit a while about the garbage problem. We don’t know how to solve this problem. We do want to support the people from the village, but they themselves also have to do something. They don’t see the garbage as a problem.
- We have another meeting because we found out about a big problem. It seems that we pay a lot more for some universities as we think before. Only the government university is within budget. The solution will be like this. Only children smart enough to go to the government university will get our support. This one is better and more cheap then the private universities. They have to collect special points. By this rule we are also sure we get motivated students.
- Also we prepare for a meeting with all the people of the village. We want the explain one more time the rules for school and the help for the people of the kampung.
On Monday the 7th of February 2011 is de big date. We have a meeting for all the people of the kampung. The Kepala Kampung opens the meeting. We are very happy to see that many Hindu people from the mountain also came. Most of the time they are holding back a little. Actually we don’t see any women, but later we found out that they were all sitting outside on a beruga and listened to the meeting.
Marijke gives a short introduction, translated by Adi, about the emergence of the project. She also tell everybody that the project becomes so big, that we need rules to handle everything. She asks the parents to take their responsibility to send their children to school.
After this Eful takes over and explains the rules:
Composed shortly:
- Every child has to come for a new picture in January for the project and gets themselves a picture from the sponsor.
- The parents from the children of junior high-school, high school and university have to sign a contract. This to push them to send their children to school. When the school is finished the contract is done. But when a child stops in between, they have to pay back the costs they made.
- The children are only allowed to go the government university. Is this to much for them then we will see if we can help them with an extra course.
For the kampung in complete the next things:
- The use of the water, shower and toilet will be paid by the project. We already have a sponsor for this.
- Also the support for the light at the small street are for the project.
- There are free medicine available for the people in the kampung. Also we will put an extra medicine box on top for the people from the mountain.
- When the people have to visit a doctor, the project will support with 500.000 ruphia. They have to show a receipt from the doctor.
- With hospitalization of pregnant women, the project will support with also 500.000 ruphia.
- When somebody dies the project supports the funeral with 200.000 ruphia.
- The bemo is free available for emergency in the evening.
- If somebody wants to use the bemo for transport to a ceremony in the evening, they have to pay a small amount for petrol.
- The bemo is only for free for the children. All the other people have to pay the standard amount.
We also talk about an eventually community centre. The Kepala Kamung will try, together with some men to find a location, were we can build one. After that we will talk again about how we can do this.
After some questions of the people, the Kepala Kampung closes the meeting. Many parents come to shake our hands. We have the feeling that they now understand a little bit more about what we do and what they can expect form us. It was a good evening.
So this was quit a story. We a learning a lot during our long stay here. It is and will be a very different culture and we are seeing more and more details, what doesn’t makes it more easy. But we love to learn and try to stay open minded. For the moment we go on with a weekly report (sorry, only in Dutch). The latest pictures you can find on Facebook under: Proyek Kampung Loco.
But dear people, don’t you forget, without you we couldn’t do al these things.
TERIMA KASIH from all the children and parents from Kampung Loco!
