Indonesia

Focusing on Indonesia...

Facts about Indonesia:

1. Capital: Jakarta
2. Dialing code: +62
3. Population: 246.9 million (2012) World Bank
4. President: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
5. Gross domestic product: 878 billion USD (2012) World Bank

Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising 13,466 islands. It encompasses 33 provinces and 1 Special Administrative Region (for being governed by a pre-colonial monarchy) with over 238 million people, making it the most populous country. Indonesia's republic form of government comprises an elected legislature and president. The nation's capital city is Jakarta. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and the Indian territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies. The Indonesian economy is the world's 16th largest by nominal GDP.

The Indonesian archipelago has been an important trade region since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, and Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished. Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Muslim traders brought

the now-dominant Islam, while European powers brought Christianity and fought one another to monopolize trade in the Spice Islands of Maluku during the Age of Discovery. Following three and a half centuries of Dutch colonialism, Indonesia secured its independence after World War II. Indonesia's history has since been turbulent, with challenges posed by natural disasters, corruption, separatism, a democratization process, and periods of rapid economic change.

Indonesia consists of hundreds of distinct native ethnic and linguistic groups. The largest – and Javanese. A shared identity has developed, defined by a national language, ethnic diversity, religious pluralism within a majority Muslim population, and a history of colonialism and rebellion against it. Indonesia's national motto, "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" ("Unity in Diversity" literally, "many, yet one"), articulates the diversity that shapes the country. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support the world's second highest level of biodiversity. The country has abundant natural resources, yet poverty remains widespread.

Read more about Indonesia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia

ADRA Indonesia

About ADRA Indonesia

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Indonesia is an Agency of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The basis for its existence, its reason for being, is to show God’s love and example by living for, helping and working with, those in need in community development and disaster relief.

ADRA Indonesia is the Agency that the Church has chosen as a primary tool in the work of trying to address social distortions and deprivation. ADRA Indonesia can be viewed as the Church's desire to improve the situation for those in need. ADRA Indonesia's relationship to the Church is central to the mission of both.

ADRA Indonesia has received support from governments, private individuals, churches, other organizations within and without Indonesia, but mainly from donor and supporting ADRA offices from around the world. This generous support has allowed ADRA Indonesia to respond timely to natural disaster, individual and in community development activities.

Through a variety of projects, ADRA Indonesia supports the dignity that is inherent in each person. We are committed to improving the quality of human life by “changing Indonesia one life at a time”, ADRA helps all people in need, most especially those most vulnerable such as woman, children, and senior citizens. ADRA serves all people without regard to their ethnicity, political affiliation or religious association.

ADRA Indonesia’s constituents are defined through its primary relationships including the church, donors, communities and other development partners.

As a development organization, over the years ADRA Indonesia has developed institutional capacity to implement development and relief programs. The organization structure is composed of the Board, the Administrative committee, the Office of the Country Director, the Programs Department, Finance Department, Logistics, Human resource and supporting offices. Futhermore, the organization has a standard accounting system, which matches with the internationally acceptable accounting principles. Effective monitoring is conducted for all the projects that are implemented by the organization through a monthly Project Coordinator's Committee, field supervision and regular monitoring. Reviews and evaluations are also conducted at scheduled intervals.

The organization hires technical and competent staff to implement programs. The cross section of professionals employed by the organization includes emergency specialists, development and social workers, educationists, accountants, public health specialist, medical personnel, IT engineer and administrators among others. This blend of professional allows a synergy of technical ideas while implementing project activities.

Some projects:

ADAPTING with the Climate, BUILDING with the Nature, RESHAPING the Future Coast

 It's all started with the passion to love nature and save it from any harm. The nature will support you back. The people living at the coastline areas really know how to live in harmony with the nature, which is the WAVE...

People of Cemarajaya village in Karawang regency (West Java) put efforts to restore their hamlet damaged by abrasion where previously it was well-known for its tourism and fishery.

How ADRA Indonesia help them to face and respond to the reality?
How is the result?
Will this initiative bring a lesson?
Who are benefited by this project?

Watch this 6-minute video on how the vulnerable coastal community uses nature-based traditional materials to cope with the climate change effects not only to survive but to thrive.

The project is designed to increase community capacity adaptation and to help them to takes mitigation measures to cope with climate change. One urgent strategy of adaptation is to elevate and extend the coastline for 2 to 5 meter per year. One of the prominent leader in the village, that is Mr Tarwo is very confidence that bamboo pole method is able to increase sand volume and will be the promise the solution for their abrasion problem.

 WASH, STREAMING Hopes

 "More than 100 million people have no access to clean water and basic sanitation. No water, no survival. Yet, one’s life is not easy without latrines. Let’s end water poverty and open defecation behavior, NOW!

Almost half of both urban and rural dwellers in Indonesia has no access to safe drinking water.  All over the country, 100 million people are still lacking of both clean water and latrines, while 40 million are still defecating in the open space. In many villages, only 38.5 per cent of families have toilets, septic tanks and other sanitary facilities. The overall scarcity of basic sanitation services contributes to the high incidence of infant death in, at least, 10 provinces.

ADRA Indonesia works with communities in Barus and Lombok to increase access to safe drinking water and to have open defecation free (ODF) villages. Available natural water sources are streamed using the gravity system as the nature is being preserved. Village water committees are established to manage the facilities and village governments drafted bylaws to ensure participation and sustainability. These committees and special teams are equipped with skills to trigger the community’s awareness to end open defecation behavior with their own resources and strengths. In some levels, they implement Sanitation Marketing Program to speed up and scale up the ODF initiative.

 SAVING Lives, RESTORING Livelihoods, REDUCING Losses

Disaster Risk Reduction Management (DRRM)

Development of COMmunity-based Response mAnagement on DisastErs (COMRADE). This project is intended to increase awareness and preparedness in disasters, especially earthquake and tsunami, in community level, and to ensure the evacuation plan, including the InaTEWS system's supporting equipment (sirens) is set up and tested accordingly (meets the standardized system).

 Read more about ADRA Indonesia at http://www.adraindonesia.org/en/