Disaster Response Indonesia Project #21956

Kalimantan Haze Emergency Appeal

by Yayasan Usaha Mulia / Foundation for Noble Work

Project Report | Sep 25, 2017
A bright and clear future ahead for Kalimantan

By Vanessa Reksodipoetro | Project Leader

Dear kind supporters,

It has been almost 2 years since we created this project page to appeal for help during the hardest time for our beneficaries in Central Kalimantan, when the smoke haze was 10 times the hazardous level and people needed urgent medical care. You responded immediately and generously and since then, so many things have happened:

Medical kits were distributed to more than 1,700 people (masks, oxygen bottles, vitamins, milk, etc).
Medical doctors were flown to Kalimantan to check on the inhabitants' health.
Around 3,000 flyers and banners were created and put up to warn people about the dangers of burning fields and the effects of the smoke haze for our health.
An extensive survey was conducted to assess the causes of the fires and assist our trainers to promote a change of mindsets in the community.
Community workshops have been organized in villages and in schools to talk about the dangers of the "slash and burn" method as well as the effects of smoke haze.
In schools, YUM organised workshops in compost making and tree planting to instill a love of their environment.

With this report, we would like to thank you once again for your generosity in our time of need, and we would like to let you know that we have accomplished our task of providing the relief packages and since there have been no fires and smoke haze in our area since the disaster of 2015, we have decided to discontinue fundraising for the project. However, we will still continue to promote a smoke-free environment within our other projects such as the Community Library, the Vocational Training Center and the upcoming Water & Sanitation project.

For our recurring donors who have generously given a monthly donation to this project, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts and if you wish to continue helping our community, you may do so by donating to our Community Library in Kalimantan project on GlobalGiving.

And for those interested in helping other projects of Yayasan Usaha Mulia, please read our 2016 Annual Report and contact us for further information.

Once again, thank you and God bless you!

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Jun 28, 2017
Testimonials from the field

By Vanessa Reksodipoetro | Project Leader

Students from SMPN 13 Palangka Raya

YUM trainers have regularly monitored the tree planting and compost making at the schools where the Fire and Haze educational workshops were delivered. At one of the schools (SMPN 13 Palangka Raya), the kids were very happy because their compost was of very good quality and they were using it to feed the fruit tree which in turn was growing well.

The YUM trainers talked with the kids and asked them about what it was that they had learned from the previous workshop and here is some of the feedback they gave:

“Before the workshop we knew that the heavy haze was dangerous but we didn’t care about the annual fires' smoke as we didn’t know about the long term effects to our health. Now we are aware that even when it is “asap biasa” (normal smoke from annual fires) we should wear masks when we are outside of the house, we should drink a lot of water and that people shouldn’t burn garbage everywhere because the smoke lowers the immune system and may cause cancer later.

When we or our family were sick because of the smoke, our parents had to spend money in medicine and sometimes in doctors.

We knew from before that trees produced oxygen but we didn’t think it was very important because we have lots of trees around [here in Bukit Batu]. However now we know that trees are important not only to provide oxygen so that all living beings can breathe, but also to help infiltrate water so as to avoid floods during the rainy season and prevent loss of water during the dry season. Trees can withstand winds and protect us from natural disasters.”

If you or your friends/family would like to help more projects like this one, go to:

Tree planting workshop

Making workshops fun for the students

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Apr 4, 2017
Moving towards a more sustainable approach

By Vanessa Reksodipoetro | Project Leader

The brush chipper to make mulch

For the past three months, the main focus of the haze project has been the purchasing of an equipment called a brush chipper, the final printing of posters and banners, the conclusion of the village workshops and the monitoring of the compost making and trees planting in schools.

The purpose of the brush chipper is to support the efforts in changing the practice of “slash and burn” to “slash and mulch”. The machine will be shared among the communities who own land and practice burning land on an annual basis. Based on a survey that was done a few months ago, the communities are open to an alternative solution to burning. Once YUM has worked out the running costs, this program will be promoted in a pilot village first before going into all the other villages.

The making of the posters and banners were designed by creative agency "Begin For Good" and will be used when necessary, especially once the dry season comes back. You can see the results in the photos below.

As for the school workshops, they were completed with a total of 781 youngsters participating – 401 girls and 380 boys . Fruit trees have been planted by the students in 8 schools and are striving well and the compost in buckets is also progressing well.

The workshops for adults have also been completed with a total attendance of 271 people - 163 women and 108 men. A real interest was expressed during discussions about the agroforestry video presented (click to see the video “Life in Syntropy”) and from 119 participants present that own 1-2 Ha of land, 103 expressed interest in implementing a similar model in case YUM could successfully develop a model adapted to local conditions. For the past six months, the YUM Agro project management has started researching this area. The people’s interest and the reality of annual fires is guiding and molding the way to YUM's possible work in the region and possibly finding an answer in this agroforestry system.

We hope you continue to support our future endeavours and maybe someday see you in Central Kalimantan!

If you'd like to help our other projects, here are a few in need of funding:

Planting trees in schools

The compost in now used regularly at school

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