The first term of 2022 was filled with many changes, both in our programs and in our team. Here are the highlights of the first four months of 2022.
New team members
We had to say goodbye to two of our team members, Dennis Kurniawan who was the Marine Conservation Program Manager, and Rodial Hudha (Ridho) who was the Program Assistant. We then welcomed four new members into the family: Alvino Dwie Putra (Vino) as the new Community Development Officer, Vandriana Artiwi (Tiwi) the Community Development Assistant, Rahmat Hidayat (Dayat) the Palmatak Village Facilitator, and finally, Rifat Muharam, our new Marine Conservation Program Manager.
Marine Conservation
The Reef Health Monitoring (RHM) activity that we did in March marked the second annual RHM in Kiabu and the first in Telaga (read more about it here). Just like the previous RHM, this year’s activity was also joined by the Bawah Reserve team.
In March we also completed the KORALIT micro-grant project funded by Sustainable Ocean Alliance. From this project, we successfully deployed 100 coral spiders and six table nurseries and attached 800 coral fragments to the Bored Pile Corals. In summary, the total area impacted by this project was 800 sqm.
Digital English Club (DEC)
The Digital English Club in Tiangau had 10 offline classes and 14 online classes from January until March. DEC expanded to a new location that is Genting Pulur in South Tarempa. The MoU was officially signed in March and the first DEC Genting Pulur class is planned for June.
Organic Farming
We’re proud to announce the completion of the Organic Farming program in Telaga Village. Back in 2018 when we were brainstorming on programs for the Foundation, we initiated Organic Farming with the aim to provide an alternative livelihood for the community other than fishing.
Four years later, we’re proud to say that we’ve achieved that goal. Telaga now has a number of independent organic farmers who tend the organic farm and greenhouse that we established there with minimum supervision from us. Some of them, plus the village women, practice Organic Home Farming at home as well. The village women also use the crops to make traditional snacks like banana chips.
During harvest season they will sell their crops, and traditional snacks, to fellow neighbors and previously to Bawah Reserve before its temporary closure due to the pandemic. Now that the resort is gearing up for its reopening, the Telaga farmers will soon need to increase their crop production to fulfill the demands from Bawah Reserve.
Women’s Empowerment
The Women’s Empowerment program started the new year by taking part in the National Waste Awareness Day event held by the Riau Islands Province on Feb. 27 in Tanjung Pinang (read more about it here). We were invited by the Anambas Environmental Agency to showcase our upcycled products at their booth. Products we chose to highlight at the exhibition were reusable bags, coconut lights and sand made from waste glass, all made by the Kiabu community as part of our Integrated Waste Management and Women’s Empowerment programs.
In February we also did a fabric donation campaign on social media to celebrate the Lunar New Year. The fabric drive was also held in the months of April and May to celebrate Easter and Idul Fitri.
Integrated Waste Management
The Recycling Centre (RC) in Kiabu started operating the thermal machine in January. According to the data, the residual ash generated from the thermal machine is 26% and residents in Kiabu utilize the ashes to fertilize their plants.
The Recycling Centre runs Monday to Friday from 08:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. Meanwhile, the Waste Bank that is held there is available every Friday. We had 87 customers in the first term with a total of 6,507.17 kgs of recyclables collected and a total of IDR 10,093,532 received by the customers.
In April we began the Waste Bank initiative in Telaga Village. Because it was a new initiative in the village, we only had five customers who came and delivered waste in Term 1.
Additionally, the Waste Management program expanded to two new villages in Palmatak District: Candi and Langir. In February we did a preliminary survey on waste management, In March and April we did a waste audit in both villages to better understand the waste condition there. Overall, the villagers were excited about our Waste Management program and they hoped that it would make their villages cleaner and waste-free.