Able to send her son to university because of Education Aid

Poverty is one of social issues in East Nusa Tenggara. According to Lucky Karyanto from Indonesian Team for The Acceleration of Poverty Reduction, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) is the poorest province after Papua and West Papua.

One of the reasons of high percentage poverty in NTT is weak quality of human resources caused by low quality of education. Ministry of Education and Culture, Muhadjir Effendy said that education in NTT is at the third of national lowest rank.

Looking at the issue, TLM-GMIT Foundation as an empowerment institution initiated to improve human resources quality in NTT by procuring education aid program in form of education loan with low interest rate and scholarship.

TLM Foundation Education aid program has been starting since 2015 while scholarship program has been starting since August of 2017. The implementation of this program was begun with a survey of problems and needs according to NTT society’s circumstances. This aid is given to parents with children who are in High School grade and university who have school expanse arrears because of poverty.

Penyerahan Beasiswa YTLM secara simbolis kepada 30 orang anak Yapenkris di SMK Kristen 1 Kupang

Penyerahan Secara Simbolis Beasiswa YTLM kepada 30 orang anak Kurang mampu di SMK Kristen 1 Kupang

Kristin Malle, staff of TLM Foundation who handles education loan said that until this June of 2018, TLM Foundation has disbursed education aid for 200 people while total of students who has received scholarship are 30 students. One of education aid clients, Mrs. Hagar Fallo who was interviewed in her house in Atuif Street, Jalur 40, Village of Belo stated that before he knew about this program, he borrowed money from other institutions but it was difficult because the interest rate was so high. Mrs. Fallo also tried to submit loan requests to some financial institutions but they were rejected with the reason that Mrs. Fallo was doubted that she will not be able to repay the loan.

Hagar Fallo, one of Education loan clients with her son, Magel Banunaek

“TLM Foundation provides loan with very low interest rate, even it feels like a loan without interest. The installment is also small so it is not hard to repay. My husband and I decided to borrow from TLM because of its low interest so it does not cause burden for us to repay. Only TLM Foundation that makes it easy for us, that is why I will stillvborrow from TLM for my daughter who later will enter university because I have seen that the success of my first son in his education is because of this education loan.” Said Mrs. Hagar Fallo who has been education loan client since 2015.

Together with TLM Foundation Developing Nation from Village

Productive garden is a community development program that has been implementing by Tanaoba Lais Manekat Foundation since 2014 to improve poor families’ income in village by utilizing unproductive land. This program aims to transform unproductive land into productive so that the land can produce plants with economic value which can help community to enhance their life standard whether from health or economy aspect.

Since 2014 until 2018, TLM-GMIT Foundation has successfully implemented productive garden in 8 villages that located in 4 regencies of East Nusa Tenggara. Those villages are; Nekmese and Sahraen in Kupang Regency, Kiubaat and Enonabuasa in South Central Timor, Kolobolon, Maubesi and Lidamanu in Rote Ndao Regency and Ngaru Kanoru in East Sumba Regency.

This program was formed from survey done by TLM-GMIT Foundation’s facilitators on villages’ potency. One of the facilitators, Freand Tedi Neno, a bachelor who is willing to live in village and mingle with villagers to do all activity of village people such as farming, planting and harvesting paddy, climbing tuak/siwalan tree so that he can experience the difficulty of living in village as a poor and also can be accepted as one of village community.

Freand Tedi Neno or familiarly called as Freand was born in Kupang, 18 April 1984. He is a graduate of Nusa Cendana University (UNDANA) Kupang, department of business administration. Freand got married to Sofeni Octavianus in 2016. Freand has been placed as facilitator in village of Kolobolon, sub-district of Central Rote since 2014.

During his service in the village as a facilitator, he delivered agriculture training to the community like horticultural, cultivation, how to combine seasonal plants in order to earn regular income, organic farming, plants treatment and post-harvest processing. Aside from that, Freand also provides teaching and training of health and village government mentoring in planning and implementing village programs.

Freand added that a facilitator does not only do mentoring and supervising and the act as “facility” to accommodate community’s aspiration as a representative of institution where he works. To collect the aspiration, Freand conduct a regular meeting to discuss weekly activity of productive garden members and their next week target as well as to discuss members’ finance that they earn from the garden. The purpose of the discussion is to make sure that decision taking is the result of agreement between members and facilitator (TLM-GMIT Foundation).

Freand stated that with the regular weekly meeting, he can see that members have gone through a change in the way of thinking where previously they just planted to fulfill the need of daily consumption but presently they see garden products as income source that can increase their economy life. Moreover, with the regular weekly meeting that involved all members, they become more courageous to state their opinions and aspirations. In other side, Freand notices that the purpose of TLM-GMIT Foundation placing a village facilitator can be achieved where the community has been more innovative in making the most of their village potency. Members whose incomes are from productive garden are able to plan their future by saving.

Freand admits that serving as a facilitator is not an easy job, especially for university graduates who tend to have dream for getting job in big city. This is because he has to live far away from his family and has to adapt with new environment and new life style. But his job as a facilitator can be understood by his wife, Sofeni Octavianus who is now serving as a Vicar in Noebanu, East Amanatun. Sofeni’s service in village enables her to understand the hardship of the poor in village so she can keep supporting her husband’s work in developing village community.

Even if there are a lot of things that makes a facilitator as a difficult profession, Freand says that he is proud of his job because he can be a “changing agent”. With many positives change that has happened to community, Freand says that being a facilitator is a delighted service. Friend also states other reasons why he is proud to be a part of TLM-GMIT foundation as a facilitor;

“Working a village facilitator of TLM-GMIT foundation has helped me to improve my life economically and help me to achieve my goal to develop village community”. Freand also added that according to him, productive garden is a solution to create employment in village so the community can feel comfortable to live in village and not being pressured by economic recession to venture to big city as TKI/TKW (Indonesian Migrant Workers) to fulfill their life needs”.

Since 2014, TLM Foundation has been directly involved to help people of Kolobolon village to transform unproductive land into productive land to improve their income and welfare. TLM Foundation with its facilitator who lives in Kolobolon and people of Kolobolon started to process the 5000 meters unproductive land to be productive. There were 22 people (12 family head) involved in this process and it was known by local government

pembuatan pagar di lahan tidur desa Kolobon

tiang kayu untuk tanda tanah sudah di beri pupuk kandang di kebun pengembangan desa Kolobolon

persiapan lahan untuk menanam buah naga

At the beginning, they started to clean the land and it was started to be processed by sprinkling fertilizer on the soil manure to enrich the nutrient in the soil. TLM Foundation introduced a farming technique using organic fertilizer. This technique was introduced because aside from health and economy aspect, the source of fertilizer is available around the community. After being processed, the land was ready to be planted with productive plants like red onion (Allium cepa), garlic (Allium sativum), string been (Phaseolus vulgaris), green mustard (Brassica rapa), water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica), dragon fruits (Hylocereus polyrhizus), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and red pepper (Capsicum frutescens).

tanaman bawang lokal di desa Kolobolon

tanaman bawang lokal di desa Kolobolon

tanaman tomat dan cabai di lahan produktif desa Kolobolon

tanaman buncis paria, kacang panjang dan ketimun di bedengan mulsa desa Kolobolon

To irrigate the water for the plants, TLM foundation provided support by utilize nearest water spring. The water is irrigated using hydram technology through pipes and goes to several water tanks in the garden. This helps productive garden member to not walk too far to get water for the plants. Previously, the members had to walk about 300 meters to get water and when it dried up, they could not water the plants. By using hydram technology, the water now can be irrigated from its source that is located lower than the garden and the irrigation will stay stabile.

pipa hydram di desa kolobolon

pipa hydram menaikan air ke tempat yang lebih tinggi di desa kolobolon

penampungan air di lahan produktif desa Kolobolon

pemanfaatan air dengan teknologi Hydram untuk pertanian

In 7 Mei 2018, Regional Representative Board Member, Ir. Abraham Paul Liyanto visited Kolobolon productive garden. In his visit, Paul Liyanto observed and gave appreciation to TLM Foundation for helping government’s program, especially through productive garden, water project with hydram technology and village law implementation mentoring so that village community and village government can use village fund in the right way as well as arrange plan for upcoming years.

Anggota DPD RI Ir Abraham Paul Liyanto mengunjungi Kebun Produktif Desa Kolobolon

Anggota DPD RI Ir Abraham Paul Liyanto mengunjungi Kebun Produktif Desa Kolobolon

• Produktif) menjadi Kebun Produktif sebagai sumber pendapatan warga

• The new hope is transforming unproductive land into productive land to be used as source of income

Kolobolon is one of villages located in Central Rote Sub-district, Rote Ndao Regency. Kolobolon was established in 1968. In 2018, total population in Kolobolon is 1.587 which 80% of them are seasonal farmers where their crops depend on water debit in rainy season. This causes garden and rice fields’ crops are used only for daily consumption not for sale. Aside from the lack of water access to water the plants, land in Kolobolon is dry and rocky and it is impossible to be used to grow productive plants.

In 2014, TLM_GMIT Foundation as one of community empowerment institutions who run community’s economy improvement program, through its staff ran survey on villages that will be made as its assisted villages. Based on survey and agreement with Mr. Watson Sodi Mbuik as The Village Head at the time, decided to enact Kolobolon as one of their assisted villages.

 The success of growing dragon fruits as top plants in productive garden of Kolobolon village is not just make it as the income source for local community but also makes Kolobolon as the only one village in Rote Ndao Regency that produce dragon fruits with unique taste.

Seeing the success,   Department of Law and Human Right   of NTT Province will try to give Kolobolon a patent right of dragon fruits as their top product.

Early Process of transforming productive land into productive garden

Unproductive garden that has been transformed into productive garden is planted with dragon fruits as top plant and many variety of vegetables

Community involved their families to work in productive garden because the sale the product is to fulfill families’ need

Community actively work in productive garden because they have known the result

Dragon fruits as the top plants grow fertile and ready to harvest

Selling dragon fruit with unique taste.

Increase The Capacity of Village Head in Managing Village Fund

In the last two years, Tanaoba Lais Manekat GMIT Foundation has been assisting and training village apparatus and community to increase their Village Law Number 6 Year 2014 implementation capacity and village fund management.

 TLM Foundation focuses more on village fund management where the amount of fund keep increasing every year and it can cause an opportunity for fraud to occur. The programs of TLM are village fund planning, implementation, supervision, one of them are BUMDES (Village-owned enterprise) forming.

 The program run by TLM to improve Village Apparatus and community’s capacity is training on Village Law Number 6 Year 2014 and forming FORKOMDES (Village Communication Forum) at Provincial and Regional level  as information sharing forum for village heads.

In Mei 2018, at the date of 2 to 9, TLM Foundation conducted training on village fund management and Village-owned enterprise (BUMDES) forming in 2 regencies, they are TTS; in 4 sub-districts (Central Amanuban, Central Molo, Batu Putih and South Amanuban), and Rote Ndao Regency in 3 sub-districts (Lobalain, Central rote and Southwest Rote). In this meeting, TLM Foundation involved member of Regional Representative Board, Abraham Paul Liyanto as the spokesman. Abraham Paul Liyanto is one of Senators and Politicians of East Nusa Tenggara who has been elected twice by NTT people as their representative for Republic of Indonesia Regional Representative Board.

As one of Regional Representative Board members, he regrets that fraud in managing village fund frequently occurs. It happens not just by the will of village head to steal people’s money, but because of the low quality of Human Resources that village apparatus have about implementation of Village Law Number 6 Year 2014 so the management of great village fund is not effective and efficient.

“from about 72.000 villages in Indonesia, 900 villages head are now in jail. This happened because they managed the fund that keeps increasing every year in wrong way. So if you ladies and gentlemen do not have enough knowledge, there is a chance you will end up like them.”Said Paul Liyanto.

Furthermore, Senator who familiarly greeted as Pak Abraham ini, in his capacity as “Ketua Pembina/Governing Board Chief” of TLM Foundation, persuaded all village heads and apparatus who were present in every meeting to support TLM Foundation current work program as a foundation’s concern for village government and community that are willing to learn to achieve their purpose that is the improvement of community’s welfare.

Abaraham Paul Liyanto also took time to visit some villages, met with village people and discussed and listened to their aspiration. Those village are TLM Foundation Assisted Village; Eno Nabuasa and Kiubaat in TTS, Maubesi,Lidamanu and Kolobolon in Rote Ndao. Those villages has been assisting by TLM Foundation with some community empowerment programs like Productive Garden, Water Project with hydram technology, Post-harvest food processing, and Home Industry.

Swengly Pello, Central Rote Sub-district Head, in his welcoming speech expressed his gratitude to TLM for contributing assistance in helping government, especially in his region.

“Training provided by TLM is a care that needs to be appreciated and thanked. It is really helpful for sub-district government, especially our area, Central Rote. It is not just productive garden we are taught but we are also trained about the application of Village Information System (SID), Village Finance System (SISKEUDES), Village Law, home industry, and sanitation where those program suit our programs.” Said The Sub-district head.

Kegiatan Yayasan TLM di fokuskan di dua desa yaitu Desa Maubesi dan Desa Lidamanu dengan program; Kebun Produktif, Pelatihan Undang-undang desa No.6 Tahun 2014, Pelatihan home industry dan bantuan fisik pembuatan irigasi dengan menggunakan teknology hydram.

TLM Foundation work focuses on two villages that are Maubesi and Lidamanu with program applied are; Productive Garden, Village Law Number 6 Year 2014 training, Home Industry, and physical assistance of irrigation establishment using hydram technology.

Furthermore, Pello hopes that TLM Foundation work programs, especially home industry, post-harvest food processing and sanitation are not only implied in village but also in sub-district area by involving all stakeholders like PKK (Welfare of Family Empowerment) and sanitation team can reach more people.