STORIES FROM THE FIELD
Mohammad Iqbal Sugandhie
National UNV Specialist – UNDP
Title
United Nation Volunteers' Participation in Improving the Socio-Economic Condition of the Community of Jampit Village in Kabupaten Bondowoso
Background
Mohammad Iqbal Sugandhie is a UNV who started his voluntary duty in October 2002 to assist the implementation of the Community Recovery Program in the region of Madura, East Java. In Madura, he facilitated the IDP (Internally Displaced People) in Sampang-Madura district, but from April 2003 he was transferred to Kabupaten Bondowoso.
Bondowoso is the district capital of Kabupaten Bondowoso in the Province of East Java. It is located about 250 km to the west of Surabaya (the provincial capital). There are 229,297 households in the districts of which 130,450 (45%) households are considered poor. From the 130,450 households, 102,005 households are considered very poor; 1.184 households are poor; 27.261 households close to being poor. The information was officially released by the Provincial Government of East Java in 2001, 4 years after the economic crisis in Indonesia.
The Community Recovery Programme is a nation-wide program funded by a trust fund contributed by multiple number of donor countries (the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands channeled thru UNDP) and is implemented by the CRP Foundation. The trust fund is administered by UNDP. In the district of Bondowoso the CRP has assisted a total of 21 projects (in cooperation with 2 local NGOs and 19 CBOs) for the fund of approximately Rp. 2 billion (US$ 235,300). This amount has been distributed to the communities of 16 villages in 9 subdistricts and helped about 600 poor households.
One of the projects is implemented by the Ababil Community Based Organization in Kerang Village of Sukosari subdistrict involving the budget of Rp.60,600,000 to assist the poor community of the village. The money is used to fund the agricultural project proposed by the community reflecting the villages potential. The CBO helps facilitate 30 poor households, of which 20 of them are in Kerang Village and 10 are from Jampit Village, both are within the subdistrict of Sumberwringin, about 77 km from the district capital of Bondowoso.
Phenomenon of the Jampit Village
Not only that Jampit is far from the district capital, socially, it also has a number of unique characters. To reach the village one has to take a very difficult access through state owned coffee plantation and reforestation. The village is an enclave, which is surrounded by deep forest, national park and large plantation estates. When the UNV entered this area for the first time, through personal approaches and facilitation, he learned that the local community was marginalized and intimidated by various parties.
According to a source, the village was built by someone who is referred as 'Mbah' (grandfather) by the villagers in the 1965s. He was a fugitive from Blitar, East Java who cleared up the state forest there and resettled. Due to lack of given accesses from the state forest authority, the growth of this village has been very slow. Today, the total of population is only 1500 or 300 households. The following is a list of the village's uniqueness and why it is still marginalized and underdeveloped compared to their neighboring villages:
- The layout of the house, the size of each house does not exceed 60 m2.
- The uniform house design and materials. All houses look the same, the walls are made of half brick not higher than 1 meter and half plywood.
- Almost all of the villagers are earning about Rp.8,000 a day as hard labors in the plantation estates or sharing 20% of the profit with the estate owners. The most popular commodities are cabbages, potatoes, carrots and lettuce.
- All villagers are forbidden by the estate owners to drink, bring in nor bring out any kind of coffee.
- The slave-master relationships between the villagers and the state forest and plantation estate managements.
The above condition can make the community of the Jampit Village as the marginalized community vulnerable to falling into extreme poverty. The Jampit village is the right target to the Community Recovery Programme as well as the other 16 villages of the Bondowoso District.
Freedom Spirit: The Available Resources of the Jampit Village Are To Be Developed for the Welfare of It's Community
The investors who have invested a lot of money are mostly from big cities do not improve the livelihood and the socio-economic condition of the local community of the Jampit Village. In the contrary, they have pushed the poor community over the edge of the extreme poverty. Geographically, Jampit is very suitable for agricultural activities such as cabbage, carrot and potato, so it attracts national investors to invest their money. The problem is the community has been exploited by these investors and paid very little wages. Can the community of Jampit change this condition? Through the partnership with the CRP, the community will start the process to change their socio-economic condition.
Interaction between the UNV and the Community; Participatory Needs Assessment and Project Planning.
The arrival of the UNV has raised question as well as given a new hope to the village community as the implementation of the initial CRP assisted project in this village have been delayed for almost two years. To answer the question and to actualize their hope, the UNV together with the community collaborate in building up their awareness of ending up poverty through the assessment of the local potentials and to develop plans and implementation strategies. The UNV facilitated the community in the establishment of a local community organization with initial 10 farmers. They agreed to start potato farming on 1 hectare (10,000 M2) of land rented from the state forest authority in Sempol.
The Community's Implementation Plan; Start With What We Know and Build With What We Have
Potato was selected as most suitable product considering the climate and geographical condition and the market opportunity, as well as relevant skills equipped by the community from their experience all this time. Skills and knowledge of potato farming has been passed down for generations and the community also had good capacity to analyze the feasibility of the project.
They said that the cost needed for 1 hectare potato farming is about Rp.10,000,000.- and the crop can be sold at Rp.25,000,000,-. The community is also capable in identifying the market access without having to depend on the middlemen who are usually there to offer their services. This shows that the farmers are motivated to start the process to improve their socio-economic condition based on what they know and start with what they have. As agreed and as the result of the participatory assessment, the potato farming will be implemented on the rented land, funded by the CRP and will try utilize the existing market network in Jember and Probolinggo.
Community's Participation: Developing the Mechanism in Reaching The Target
Today the 10 members of the CBO have planted 1,000 kg of local potatoes on 1 hectare of rented land, about 3 km away from their settlement. The land was prepared at the end of June 2003 and the planting was carried out in mid July 2003. The crop is in satisfying condition and according to plan, and the CBO is even more motivated. The working schedule of the CBO members has been carefully arranged. In turn, 5 members will be working on the farm from 6 AM to 12 PM to do watering and weeding, while the other 5 members will work as paid labors with the state and other plantation estates. The system was developed to motivate all members of the CBO so that they can optimize their time in the maintenance of the crop in order to have the expected benefit.
Next Step: Agribusiness and Institutional Building for the Sustainable Livelihood
Potato farming as the CRP's entry point in the Jampit Village has been planned and implemented. The success of this project will bring back their self esteem and confidence that have vanished along with the exploitative business relations with various investors. Nevertheless, all the efforts will be ineffective if carried out without developing and improving their institutional capacity.
Agriculture-based business development needs to be carried out as in the past the successful crops did not always guarantee the welfare of the farmers due to lack of market accesses. Therefore at the CBO level, the agribusiness development will be started with the improvement of CBO management capacity through improving their knowledge in business analysis, plan and implementation. This will be followed with internal and external capital development programs. Internally, this will be done through encouraging the community to save money, and externally through connecting the community with local financial institutions such as village banks, cooperatives etc.
Institutional capacity building in Jampit Village is focused on the establishment of a business unit to help improve the living standard of the community and to strengthen the bound within them. With the establishment of the business unit, it is expected that the condition can be created where the village community are able to help themselves, and are more capable in developing their socio-economic condition in sustainable way to return their self esteem, confidence, cooperation and tolerance within the members of the community. To support this, various training will have to be provided particularly to build their capacity such as exploring the community's aspiration to achieve shared vision and mission; community based organization management; developing working and member recruitment mechanisms.
The UNV has the following strategies to ensure the sustainability of the program: Living and working with the grass root community, to initiate dialogues and share experiences to develop group's initiatives and creativity.
- Facilitating the community with training on micro-business and organization establishment.
- Playing the role as the mediator to link the community with other civil society components such as local government departments, NGOs as well as with investors and private sector.
Summary
The role of UNVs in supporting the implementation of the Community Recovery Program in Indonesia is very crucial. The UNVs are not only capable in helping the CRP Regional offices in the administrative and technical matters, but they can also play the role in supervising and monitoring the distribution and management of the project funds by the project beneficiaries.
The UNV in the Jampit Village, Kabupaten Bondowoso, is very concerned with the socio-economic condition of the village community. Initial steps have been taken with the village community, but it is still a long way to finally achieve the expected goal. The interaction between the UNV and the community has been initiated and the relatively small project fund have been used as the social capital in supporting their efforts in achieving the goal. It is only hoped that commitments from all parties can be united to achieve the community recovery goal of the Jampit Village, Sumberwaring, Kabupaten Bondowoso.
Terima Kasih (Thank you).
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