Sustainable Development

Indonesia is still learning how to put its best foot forward in order to relieve the extreme poverty faced by a large percentage of its rural population, a problem compounded by the multiple natural disasters we have experienced over the last few years. Our current efforts are focused on both long term sustainable development projects in these extremely poor areas and on those that have been devastated by natural disasters.

Research plays a vital preparatory role in this part of our work, and before we jump into what sometimes appear to be hopeless situations, we work hard to understand the situation of the community we are trying to help. In the short term we try to provide the supplies these communities require to survive while balancing the longer term goal of economic recovery. This includes developing and promoting mechanisms that are environmentally sustainable and training the community in the skills that will allow them to become self-supporting over time. On a social level we make one-on-one counselling available to the community to help them recover from these traumatic experiences.