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How
Our Story Intersects the Sambas Story
We began by meeting passenger ships of the Pelni transport line
which arrived every two weeks. The main ship that made that journey was called
the Bukit Raya. Our group provided medical treatment through volunteer
doctors and we also were able to offer bread and water as well
as transportation to the island and
to their villages of final destination
 Many of the
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were ill with dysentery, respiratory infections
and other diseases caused by the trauma they experience and the flight through the
jungle to Pontianak. In addition to treating those arriving on
the ships, the doctors began to make
bi-weekly medical trips
to the village of Katol Timur in the Kokop regency. This village
received the largest number of returning IDPs per capita. The
village itself had a population of 3,000 and an additional 3,000
had arrived to live with family and relatives. But,
arriving IDPs had nowhere to stay
and were forced to find places on the floor with distant relatives,
all the while trying to make some sense of their lives.
As August and September approached with the height of the dry
season, the need for
water
became acute. Therefore, we decided to hire a work team to drill some water wells in
villages where large numbers of IDPs had been assimilated.
In early 2000, the government of Indonesia established a refugee
resettlement village on the slopes of the hills just south of
the village of Sepuluh, on the northwest coast of Madura. In
August, we were asked by the village head to help them with
their water needs. A team from Canada was recruited. These
folk came
to work with the villagers in order to install a water system in the
village replete with a reservoir, with underground piping and
with 1,000 liter tanks spaced throughout the village.
In 2001 another wave of refugees arrived on the island from
Central Kalimantan – the settled in Sampit and Pelangkaraya. We helped these
as well meet their food and water needs. Soon a request came for
us to help a additional villages with water by damming rivers that
were full during the rainy season but which would dry up for 3-6 months during
the dry
season. The result were concrete reinforced dams which provided water for
hundreds of local residents and which ensured that wells
nearby did not dry up during the dry season.
In 2002 a large earthen dam was built in the resettlement
village of Kelbung that now serves as a primary source for bath water and
for washing
clothes, especially during the dry months. Six villages of
original residents in the area come to Kelbung to make use of
this water during the height of the dry season.
An acute need of these displaced Madurese was for employment..
Noticing that agle palm was native to Madura, we began
experimenting with it by making handicrafts out of the string
made from the spine of this palm leaf. We trained IDP women in
making handicrafts (primarily bags and hats) utilising agle string
- it had traditionally been used by the Madurese as string to make fishing nets;
however, with the introduction of nylon string, agle tree leaves
are not often used for this any longer. However, we are
pleased to say that handicrafts are now fashioned from what its
product - what is called 'peser' string.
Click here for
more details about SNM's handicrafts unit.
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