Doing Freedom (TEAR Fund NZ)

For years I have had the privilege on behalf of my work at TEAR Fund to travel to third world countries to monitor the projects we support. Currently I am in Bali to make arrangements for a research programme associated with some post graduate study I am engaged in. I am facing the challenge that many students before me have grappled with in trying to overcome the gulfs of language, world view, religion and culture to gather the stories and data I am looking for to understand why people cooperate, and whether cooperatives can survive the onslaught of globalisation. I have been confronted by poverty on many occasions, but when we met a family in the remote mountain community of Git Git I was all but undone.

Suwerto is a tiny woman and has five children; her husband abandoned her some years ago. The oldest child who didn’t finish primary school now lives in the city of Denpasar scratching out a living as a nanny. The second eldest boy also left primary school without qualifying and finds work where he can on surrounding properties.
It is the third daughter, a shy girl of 11 that we came to see. She is exceptionally bright and finished primary school with straight A’s. The family lives about an hour’s walk up slippery paths through the forest and along a narrow road from the main highway. Git Git has three primary schools, but the older children have to commute to the junior highschool in Singaraja a 45 minute drive from the village. Even if Suwerti could have come up with the school fees, the cost of transport was too high.

Over dinner the night before our host had shared with us this family’s situation. We came up with a plan that would involve us paying for her school fees, and the girl would come into Denpasar and stay with our host’s family and go to a local school. Even paying for the better quality education she could get from a private school was not out of the question as she was the only hope that the family had to break out of the poverty trap they were in.
Their simple wooden board house was almost empty of possessions, two beds and a small bench. The mother cooked on an open wood fire. She collected, cut and carried wood up to the side road at the top of the track to sell to vendors from the village, hard work for little return. Her reaction when the suggestion was made that her daughter move into the city was one of pain and tears. But she could see that this was a wonderful opportunity and put the proposition to her daughter. The little girl’s face crumpled at the thought of leaving her mother, she would not agree to go. So as the sun dropped behind the ridge we clambered back up the track with heavy hearts praying that God would give her the courage to leave the forest for the city.

What is wrong with this picture? How could her father turn his back on his family? Their situation was so precarious. With our kiwi can do culture we want to fix things, sort it out, and now. But some problems cannot be nailed easily.
As a rule people do not fall into poverty overnight, it also takes time to get out of such circumstances. Suwerti had been given a cow, but she was too busy looking after her children and cutting firewood to manage the extra work of cutting and carrying fodder. It was suggested that she be given a wood stove so that the smoke from her cooking fire would go up the flue, and not into the house. The problem was that if she got behind in her rent, the landlord would come and take the stove. Currently another plot of land is being considered for purchase by the organisation we partner with WKP so that Suwerti and her family could live free of the fear of eviction if she got behind with her rent.
WKP has worked with many families like Suwerti’s and know just how hard it is to break the chains of poverty. One day Suwerti will join one of the self help groups WKP run in the area where the members look after one another. Earlier that day we saw a setup where group members are given a pregnant cow to look after, they keep the calf and the cow goes to the next family. We saw community gardens where mixed intensive cropping along with organic fertiliser production using worm farms were producing high value, high yielding crops. We saw a trial biogas converter that extracted methane out of cow manure which will be used to cook pig food. In one community there was great excitement as a new TV aerial was hoisted aloft on a long bamboo pole so that the villagers could watch the World Cup soccer matches. All good stuff, but the lesson we learned was that sustainable progress is slow; change comes only with hard work and patience.

Prayer: Father God sometimes it is hard for us to enjoy the blessed life we have when we know there are so many out there whose daily struggle to survive is too great to comprehend. Help us to be smart so that mothers like Suwerti can be supported in a way that will work, and will provide a hope and a future for her children.

Richard Barter