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The Future
Our accomplishments to date are the first step on a long journey. Unlike most aid organizations, whose projects have a two to six year lifespan, The Sumba Foundation vision extends to 20 years and beyond.
We realize that there is no quick fix to alleviating poverty, and that to overcome it will take generations of hard work and dedication to achieving the goals that we have set for ourselves.
We are working outwards from our headquarters at Nihiwatu, on the southwest coast of Sumba, where already tens of thousands of Sumbanese are benefiting from our work.
We typically target new areas to work in that are about 25 square miles in size. As we succeed in completing water, health and education projects to our satisfaction in these areas, we then move outward to the next bordering areas. In this manner, we can establish an infrastructure and supply system that is efficient and under control.
We expect that at the end of our twentieth year, in 2021, we will have water stations in more than 1,000 villages, thereby providing over 120,000 people with clean safe water, the necessary foundation for better health and hygiene.
We will have distributed 400,000 mosquito nets protecting over 600,000 people from the devastating effects of malaria.
Our education programs will be supporting 43 primary schools that are teaching more than 13,000 young children each year. Those students will be provided with a safe and well maintained learning environment, a steady flow of school supplies and a very important healthy lunch each day.
Gainful employment is critical to the success of any long-term aid program and we will continually be seeking ways to create employment for those who desire it. The Sumba Foundation’s agro-business programs train and encourage business partnerships with the budding tourism industry. We provide scholarships for men and women to attend hotel training schools and to find employment for the graduates at Nihiwatu Resort.
Others will be supported trough university to return to work with The Sumba Foundation as doctors, nurses, educators and agronomists.
Our efforts aim to promote enhanced income opportunities for the people of the villages by creating markets for the handicrafts the women make so well.
Our goal is to create thousands of well paying jobs and to start small economies growing in the remote regions of the island. In so doing we will have set in motion the beginnings of the end of poverty on the island.