Updates and highlights of our work from May to August 2022.
Marine Conservation
In the month of June, we celebrated the 2022 World Ocean Day in Kiabu (read about the event here) with a three-day event for the schoolchildren. The event was an extension of our KELAUT (Nature and Marine Class) activity that aims to educate kids through fun, educational activities on conservation. We had a coloring activity, quizzes, and beach clean-up that was held in partnership with LKKPN Pekanbaru.
In August we had a small gathering in Kiabu Village with the fishermen’s group, POKMASWAS (maritime and fisheries monitoring society), the village head and administrative staff, and several villagers to present the progress and achievements of the marine conservation program so far and to hear their opinions and feedback regarding our work.
We also welcomed welcomed two new interns, Reyhan and Ariqa, who are students at Jenderal Soedirman University in Central Java. They are helping us with our conservation work and will be interning with us for three months.
Digital English Club (DEC)
We expanded the DEC program to Genting Pulur in South Tarempa with a preliminary assessment for prospective students in May before we put them into groups based on their English skills.
The main challenge for the Genting Pulur chapter has so far been the poor internet connection and frequent power outages, however, throughout the second term we successfully held 20 online classes there.
Women’s Empowerment
In Telaga Village, the village women made 100kgs of traditional chips for Bawah Reserve and received IDR 9,250,000. With the reopening of the resort, it’s expected that in the next term the village women will receive more requests to make traditional chips.
With three new waste bank activities in Telaga, Candi, and Langir villages we saw the need to provide more reusable trash bags for the villagers there to collect their waste. In the second term we asked the women’s group in Kiabu to make 120 trash bags that we then bought for IDR 15,000 each. Each village will receive 40 bags, the plan is to ship these bags from Kiabu in term 3.
Integrated Waste Management
In the month of May we received the news that we received a Honnold Foundation grant of $52,159 for solar energy installations at the Recycling Centre in Kiabu and waste management facilities in Candi and Langir. The solar technology installation in Kiabu was completed in term 2 and installations in Candi and Langir were completed in September (read more here).
The expansion of IWM in Candi and Langir of the Palmatak District went well. Waste bank activity in the two villages ran every Saturday. The Candi waste bank had 42 customers, received a total of 2,253 kg of recyclables and the customers received IDR 1,560,400; In Langir the waste bank had 34 customers, received 1,334 kg of recyclables and the customers received IDR 897,820. Additionally, as part of the expansion plan, our team had a waste audit in four other villages within the Palmatak District: Tebang, Ladan, Putik and Piabung.
Meanwhile, in Telaga, the waste bank activity was held at hamlet one and 19 villagers signed up in the second term. The waste bank received 1,917 kg of waste and villagers made IDR 2,561,415.
In Kiabu, the progress of the waste bank was satisfactory. There were 79 villagers who regularly delivered recyclables every Friday to the RC in term 2, the waste bank collected 4,231 kg of waste and villagers received IDR 12,268,292.
Moreover, a total of 1,179 kg of residual waste was processed with the thermal machine, 229 kg of plastic bottles shredded and 814 kg of glass sand produced at the Kiabu Recycling Centre in the second term of 2022.