Small Grants Final Report 2018

 

 

 

We began the Rotary 2017-18 year with $2790.26 in the club bank account and about $928 in the RAWCS accounts. Although we attempt to use all the money in our accounts in the project year, often money is received after conclusion of the year’s project cycle in March or April.

 

 

On 4 May 2017, a final payment of $15,110.00 for last year’s project was made to the service provider, NTA. 

Several significant donations were received into the club account after confirmation of the final budget last year (2016-17). These were;

A personal donation from Rtn Mary Bryant from Woolgoolga Rotary Club. Mary was one of the Rotarians in the monitoring tour conducted in 2015.                               $1000.00

A donation from Chatswood Sunrise Rotary Club.                                                   $400.00

A donation from Woolgoolga Rotary.                                                                      $2000.00

 

 

In May, we conducted our first committee meeting for the year and noted a number of observations and objectives.

 

On 1 July 2017, an application was made for a Rotary District Grant of $6000 with all current funds available used as collateral.

In relation to Rotary District Grants, contributing clubs should ensure that any other applications for Rotary District Grants for other projects is Indonesia, are clearly differentiated from The Rotary Small Grants Project. This is necessary to ensure that money from only one District Grant is applied to the Rotary Small Grants Project Indonesia and that separate grants are not used to support the same project.

The first list of Small Projects to the value $14,983 was received in July and circulated to the committee for review.

About this time, contact was made with PP John Mercer of Belconnen Rotary club in Canberra concerning duplicating the Rotary Small Grants Project in the ACT.

In July, Rtn Graham Timms of Ku-ring-gai club was welcomed as Ku-ring-gai club Small Grants project coordinator.

Also in July, Rtn Ian Burnet from Northbridge club announced the club’s intention to fund 14 water tanks under the Small Grants scheme and for Ian to personally fund the High-Yield Cocoa projects on the list. Northbridge and Ian were the first of several donors to have their donations linked to specific Small Projects. Club members now know the kelompok (cooperative group), the village where the project will be completed and its location in NTT. Most water tanks for example are on either Flores or Semau Islands. Ian’s cocoa improvement projects are on Flores Island.

On the 6 December 2017 a project committee meeting was held. Chris Curtis announced his intention of stepping down from his project position on 18 December 2018. The minutes of that meeting form part of this report.

In January, with about $17,000 in the club account and more expected from other clubs, NTA were requested to provide a supplementary list of Small Projects for consideration.

On the 18^th January, NTA reported the successful completion of the Small Projects on the original and supplementary lists to a combined value of $20,035.

A pro forma District Grant report was provided to District 9685 on 25^th January 2018. On receipt of the report PP David Dean, expressed concerns about multiple grants for the same project (above). All of David’s questions were answered in early February and the final $3000 of the grant is awaited.

 

 

 

A number of club and individuals supported the Small Grants Project in 2017-18. These include;

Lane Cove Rotary Club                                                                                             $2000.00

Rotary District 9685                         ($2250+$3000)                                            $5250.00

Mary Bryant (Woolgoolga)               (personal donation)                                      $1000.00

Woolgoolga Rotary Club                  ($2000+$1000)                                            $3000.00

Chatswood Sunrise Rotary Club                                                                              $400.00

North Sydney Sunrise Rotary Club                                                                          $2000.00

Ku-ring-gai Rotary Club                                                                                           $2000.00

Ian Burnet                                          (personal donation)                                      $1195.00

Northbridge Rotary Club                                                                                          $5755.00

Total Donations 2017-18                                                                                         $22,600.00

 

 

 

RAWCS account $2171.00

Rotary Lane Cove account $23,009.15

 

With this report, the board of Lane Cove Rotary Club are requested to approve the transfer of $20,035.00 to the NTA bank account in payment for the Small Projects successfully completed in Indonesia. Details of these individual Small Projects are detailed in the NTA reports attached.

 

We are particularly thankful to our regular Rotary supporting clubs for donations and to Rotary District 9685 for the District Grant. Contributing clubs have not only provided funds but also invaluable management advice and support. Thanks to the work of the committee and supporters, we have managed to comfortably exceed our initial budget again and fund more than 54 small projects in farming communities in eastern Indonesia, including:

15 ‘living fences’, 9 water tanks and 7 toilet blocks to farming groups on Semau Island.

4 water tanks, 12 toilet blocks and 2 cocoa improvement projects to groups on Flores Island.

5 water tanks for groups in West Timor.

The value of this work cannot be exaggerated and progress in family and community wellbeing enabled by the program is visible to any observer. 

The success of the year can be attributed to the collective efforts of the committee and supporters who have worked to advance the Small Grants Project for the benefit of impoverished communities in Indonesia. Some names spring to mind but the list is by no means complete.

Particular thanks to Lane Cove Rotary Club, the initiators and facilitators of the Small Grants program, and North Shore Sunrise and Chatswood Sunrise Rotary Clubs, for their continuing assistance with the project.

 

PP Chris Curtis

 

Rotary Club of Lane Cove

Project Co-ordinator

Small Grants Project Indonesia

20 February 2017

 

Attachments;

 

 

 

These notes are intended to inform Rotary Small Grants donors about the NTA’s experiences in facilitating activities so very generously supported by participating Clubs. They expand on the brief comments on individual items in the attached activity by activity analysis. We in the NTA are very ready to respond to further queries Rotary supporters may wish to make, and sincerely thank participating Clubs along with Ian and Yusra Burnet for their donations. 

All 2017 Rotary-financed activities were completed and checked by end-2017. The NTA Australia-NTA Indonesia Team visited all sponsored kelompoks and schools in November/December 2017, discussing situations with those involved. The Team usually worked in 2 sub-teams, not seeing all completed facilities and only inspecting those of particular interest. Thus a living fence would be viewed if constructed around an especially significant crop, and a tank or toilet would be inspected if there were difficulties in construction. But 100 per cent of activities had been carefully checked by local extension officers, who if they found problems would ensure these were rectified. The officers were also present during the Team’s November/December visits.

It should be noted that in May 2017 the NTA underwent a major change in dividing from an original integrated structure into NTA Australia and NTA Indonesia, two independent organizations collaborating closely to promote poor rural families in eastern Indonesia. This change followed years of training and progressive devolution, and is expected to result in an even more dynamic record in poverty alleviation. The NTA A’s and NTA I’s efforts are still referred to here as those of the ‘NTA’.

These are a highly effective combination of modern (barbed wire) and traditional (Gamal stakes) technology. Gamal is a common local shrub. Given proper annual maintenance the fences will last many years. Their effectiveness depends on the continuing growth of stakes, which need to be initially planted in the rainy season, and on the number of strands of barbed wire. Five strands will keep cattle out, but 9 strands are needed for goats and pigs. Extension officers help with technical advice, and suggest necessary modifications.

Sometimes kelompoks decide to use their barbed wire for a single cooperative fence around a large jointly cropped area, but on other occasions the wire is divided between individual kelompok members, who use it for improving the living fences around their house compounds. This decision is made by the members.

While it was initially estimated that the finance provided for living fences in 2017-18 was sufficient to purchase 40 rolls of barbed wire, the price of wire rose in late 2017 and only 39 rolls could be purchased and distributed. This is not noted on the attached analysis, but is recorded in the detailed financial analyses kept in the office.

Living fences are a major positive enabler of improved crop production, and the NTA is encouraging the planting of wet and dry season irrigated vegetables, cashew nut, mangoes and other fruit trees within the fences. All these crops are important income earners, and do much to raise the current miserable cash revenues, commonly by 50 to 100 percent.

The standard of construction of tanks has risen steadily, and on the May/June 2017 visit an Australian Team member who had been manager for 10 years of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area commented that NTA-sponsored tanks were already at or above the standards of similar tanks in Australia. 

The tank program is extremely popular, in that the facility dramatically reduces time previously spent in water collection while also providing water of a far higher quality and thereby boosting health. This is especially so in the late dry season, when wells and other sources are drying up and collected water from old sources is full of sediment. Over 1,000 such tanks have already been facilitated by the NTA over the last 15 years, with an especially big impact in Flores. A good proportion of tanks have been financed by Australian Rotary Clubs, many in support packages arranged before formation of the Rotary Small Grants Group. 

The tanks are constructed next to buildings with corrugated iron roofs, being fed with water through gutters in the rainy season. A tank will supply an average family of 5 persons with drinking water and limited water for other purposes for about 4 months. Somewhat better-off families often refill tanks by purchasing water from lorry tankers.

It is important when tanks are almost empty to keep 7-8 cms of water in them so as to prevent cracking. Farm families are well aware of this, but on a few occasions tanks at schools have run completely dry and cracked. This can be remedied, but at considerable cost. 

Household Toilets  

These are a further much appreciated project, with major positive health effects and very beneficial impacts on privacy, especially of women. When this project was started in the 1990s the NTA was afraid pollution might spread from septic tanks and pollute water supplies, a big difficulty in the high rainfall parts of Java. The NTA commissioned a study of this problem, finding that the very hot and dry climate in eastern Indonesia means septic tanks dry up quickly, with pollution whatsoever.

Some 4,000 toilets have already been sponsored by the NTA with support from generous donors particularly including Rotary. Indeed, many better-off families are now erecting toilets on their own account without assistance. But this is still impossible for poorer families, who are a continuing focus for assistance.

One problem with very poor families receiving toilets is that they tend to delay plastering of the inside and outside, which they are expected to pay for themselves. This leads to infiltration of rainwater and quicker building deterioration. Extension officers are making special efforts to encourage such families to complete the work, and all toilets supported by the Rotary Small Grants group are fully plastered.

8,300 Seeds of F1 cocoa were planted in polybags filled with soil, compost and sand at the nursery at Kewapante in September 2017, and some 8,200 seedlings were distributed to 220 selected cocoa farmers at the start of rains in December 2017, after they had reached a good size. This is part of a continuing program since 2010. This year all cocoa farmers are located at altitudes over 350-400 metres above sea level, it having been found during the drought in 2016 that lower areas are generally too dry for cocoa cultivation, causing high seedling mortality.

Cocoa seedlings are planted on terraces at spacings of 3 x 3 metres, although this is adjusted to the presence of other trees in the normal multi-tree crop environment including especially cloves, cinnamon and coconut.  

It should be mentioned that another non-Rotary donor in mid-2017 unexpectedly contributed money for seed, with this money being chiefly utilized for buying improved coconut seedlings which were also distributed at the start of the rainy season, focusing on drier farms below 300 metres. The money from this other donor was also used to provide cocoa nursery facilities not covered by Ian and Yusra Burnet’s grant, including overhead netting and fertilizers, composting materials and pesticides.

The cocoa seedlings planted in December 2017 are doing well with the heavier than normal rain in early 2018, and can be expected to come to maturity within about 5 years. With populations of 300 cocoa seedlings per hectare the plantings can be expected to cover over 25 hectares, although this will be divided into small blocks averaging about 0.1 hectare. Farm families are reluctant to cut down many trees due to immediate loss of incomes, but it is hoped that as they recognize improved yields from new seedlings they will plant bigger areas. Families were only provided with seedlings if they had already constructed appropriate terraces, and dug holes part- filled with compost. This basic scenario does much to ensure long-term survival.

 

Canberra, Wednesday, 17 January, 2018

 

 

 

 

Meeting Minutes Wednesday December 6 2017

13/13-15 Morton St. Wollstonecraft

 

 

 

 

Present: Roger Wescombe, Chris Curtis (Chair), Dick Dawes, Ron Tweedie (Lane Cove Rotary), Moira de Vos (North Sydney Sunrise Rotary), Yusra and Ian Burnet (Northbridge Rotary).

 

Chris Curtis opened the meeting and welcomed those present. It was noted that others who were invited are travelling or otherwise committed and could not attend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CC indicated that promotion would continue in the New Year beginning with existing clubs that have shown an interest in the project or have requested an update.

 

MdeV commented that the existing promotion material was good but needed to be put into context by the speaker. IB was impressed by Moira’s explanation of family progress developing from one small project to another.

 

It was reported that Phil Domaschenz (NTA) had returned from a recent monitoring tour of Small Project is NTT with personal stories and photographs of individual projects and their benefits to families and communities. CC noted that this was significant progress in the need to show donors a direct link between their donations and the beneficiaries. Phil will also pursue the marking of projects with the Rotary name where possible. This is not as easy as it sounds as the focus in NTT was on satisfactorily completing each Small Project rather than on fund raising.

 

On Corporate sponsorship, CC commented that he would like this type of donation developed further but that it was difficult to contact corporations for support. Finding the best point of contact in the business or corporation was one of the problems.

 

 

It was noted that NTA had added a new project type to the list. These are ‘living fences’, or fences formed by cutting stakes from local trees, and joining them with several strands of barbed wire.

 

The current list of Small Projects was considered satisfactory and the supplementary list will be circulated for approval when it is received from NTA. There was no discussion on the project target for 2018. This can be better accessed in April after payment of this year donation.

 

 

 

 

The meeting closed at about 5.30pm and CC thanked all the members attending.

 

 

 

Chris Curtis

10 December 2017