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Fostering Education
Children are born into the world eager to learn. All too often, though, they do not have access to education. There are a number of reasons for this. Either there is no money, or the school is too far away, or the children are working to support their families, or there are not enough facilities to accommodate all children in a community. All of these apply to Sumba!
We believe that a basic education is every child’s fundamental right and that children from poor families are also entitled to an education. Without a proper education or adequate resources, the people of Sumba cannot break out of the cycle of poverty.
Between the years 1997 to 2005 Indonesia was first caught in the grips of a severe Asian wide financial crisis, which was followed by major political turmoil, which was then followed by terrorist activities and bombings throughout the country. The country was undergoing a major political and social upheaval that drew its attention away from developing educational programs. In Sumba, even though there have been recent improvements, the government still cannot properly support its schools. It is now recognized that a whole generation or more will remain uneducated, thus hindering the nation’s prospects..
When we started to focus on the local primary schools we found that they were operating at 50% or less of the capacity they were built for. At that time only one out of two or three buildings at each school were safe to use. The others were left to literally rot away. There was no running water at any school and most did not have any chairs or benches for the children to study on. The floors of all classrooms were riddled with large potholes from rainwater pouring in from leaking roofs during the monsoon rains. The schools were also lacking in basic materials such as blackboards, books, paper, pens and pencils, and to make matters even worse the students are required to purchase uniforms in order to be allowed to attend classes; a great obstacle for many families who simply cannot afford them
The elementary schools in remote districts are few and far apart, typically serving the educational needs of about 250 pupils from ten to thirty villages. Many of the children must walk three to five miles each way to school. All of the schools were in serious disrepair with major renovation required. In 2002 we went to work building new roofs and floors at the Rua and Hobawawi schools. The following year we were building new classrooms at Pededewatu and Larawatu. By 2007 we were supporting 10 schools; at seven of them we built fully stocked libraries. At each school we brought in water and constructed toilets. Every student at the schools we supported was provided with school supplies and uniforms for those that could not afford them and this still continues to this day.
Back in 2002 we started with two schools and a few hundred students, now we support 4,025 students at 15 primary schools. At every school student enrollments have doubled, and the number of students staying in school and finishing 6th grade has jumped by 300%. Some of our employees graduated from these schools and went on to finish high school with scholarships recieved from The Sumba Foundation.
The government finally started stepping up in 2009. Embarassed by our work they started building new classrooms and even libraries at dozens of schools using our book lists to fit them out with. This has been what we have been waiting for, now our work can move from the physical rehabilitation of the schools to nurturing and improving the quality of education the children are receiving.