There is a village in Indonesia so isolated that until 1998
there had been almost no contact with the outside world. Few
of its people had ever seen a westerner or an Indonesian flag.
No one spoke Indonesian and most of the children suffered
from iodine deficiency and malnutrition. But this community
is not in the interior of Papua or some remote island. The
72 square kilometre village of Ban with its 19 hamlets spans
the arid wasteland between the peaks of Mount Agung and Mount
Abang in Bali’s Karangasem Regency.
Until about 7 years ago no one knew how many people lived
in the upper reaches of Ban, or how they lived. They subsisted
on corn and cassava, the only crops that would grow in the
parched earth. If they needed anything else and had the cash
to buy it, the market was a 5 hour walk down a vertical mountain
trail. There were a few primary schools at the lower end of
the village closer to the road, but the teachers rarely came
and the buildings fell into disrepair. Illiteracy was almost
universal in the highest hamlets, where about 1,500 families
live in single-room homes with bamboo walls and dirt floors.
The situation has improved dramatically since then. Ban’s
3,000 families are the focus of the East Bali Poverty Project,
an integrated and holistic program that was started in 1998
by Founder/Chairman David Booth. Today, a dedicated staff
of over 90 young Indonesians, mostly from the lower hamlets
of Ban, runs a variety of sustainable programs from the EBPP
centre at the base of the mountain. The comprehensive centre
for sustainable development, research and training includes
offices, a humming network of computers, a library, and a
permaculture-type community learning centre with a composting
worm farm, organic vegetable patch and a small herd of dairy
goats. Teams responsible for programs in children’s
education, health improvement, nutrition, appropriate technology,
safe water resource development, organic farming and erosion
control with vetiver grass fan out through the remote villages
every day. They drive dirt bikes up impossibly steep and narrow
tracks to gather data, deliver training, teach children and
build schools. The most distant hamlet is a daunting 14 kilometres
from the centre and 1150 metres above sea level.
It’s the very end of the dry season as we lurch up an
unpaved track on the slopes of Mount Abang through clouds
of pungent dust. Today’s mission is to follow a mobile
dental clinic which is visiting one of the hamlets. The fully
equipped clinic, which has its own generator, is lent to the
project twice a week by the Bali International Women’s
Association (BIWA). Dr Panji Triadnya, Master of Health Sciences
who lectures in dentistry at University Mahasaraswati, leads
a group of 15 final-year dentistry students who have volunteered
to treat the school children today. Dr Panji started working
with the project as a volunteer in 2001. “When I first
started treating the people here, not one had ever seen a
toothbrush,” he recalls. “The rate of gingivitis
(gum disease) was about 92% due to malnutrition and a complete
absence of dental hygiene. Now the figure is about half that.”
Dr Panji’s ambitious goal is to deliver top dental services
to all the forgotten people of the remote community. “This
is my hobby,” he claims modestly.
Between June and August of this year he single-handedly assessed
over 2,000 children below the age of 12, making his grueling
rounds on the back of a dirt bike. Only two, from hamlets
closest to the road, had ever seen a dentist before. Now each
child is being checked and treated through the mobile clinic.
Today the clinic parks near a school and the dental students
give each class a simple presentation on oral hygiene and
basic nutrition. Crowded five to a bench, the kids are riveted.
Proper brushing technique is demonstrated, and dusty forefingers
obediently probe 39 mouths. Then the dentists don gloves and
start calling up the kids by name. Each has his or her teeth
examined and cleaned, a chart filled out and those who need
fillings or rotten baby teeth extracted line up outside the
mobile clinic. Inside the spotless clinic, one child lies
back in the dental chair and another four perch on a row of
chairs waiting their turn, all agog at the chill of the air
conditioning.
Ten minutes up the mountain, another group of dentists have
arrived at an even more remote hamlet in the back of a truck.
Here, the school built by the EBPP is so new that the doors
are just being fitted into the classrooms. The kids line up
happily for their check-ups. Those who need anesthetic are
driven down to the clinic, others have their baby teeth extracted
on the spot and go back to their classes with wads of cotton
in their mouths. Not one of them sheds a tear or shows any
apprehension. These kids are tough -– they have to be.
Until the EBPP came, only the strongest survived.
Some of the lower hamlets have newly staffed and repaired
government schools, more remote areas are served by schools
build by EBPP. The children at the latter attend three times
a week and are given milk and a nutritious meal. Now they’re
growing so fast they need new school uniforms every few months.
“It’s great,” beams David, who was awarded
an MBE for his work with the EBPP.
Each of the 5 EBPP schools has its own organic garden. Here
the children learn to grow 20 kinds of vegetables for their
school meals, making their own compost from cow manure and
worm castings and stabilizing the steep slopes with vetiver
grass (Vetiveria zizanioides). These gardens are the core
of a sustainable food security program for the future.
The children love school and are eager to learn, sometimes
achieving literacy in a single day. Most now speak Indonesian.
Six graduated from EBPP’S junior high school in Bunga
hamlet this year, a real victory considering the almost universal
illiteracy rate of just a few years ago. They recently started
senior high school, still sponsored by EBPP.
At day’s end, we crash back down the dusty mountain
track to the EBPP centre, followed by the mobile clinic. Another
200 children have been treated today. As the dental program
reaches further up the mountain, the dentists will access
the more remote hamlets on the back of dirt bikes, sending
the kids who need more complex treatment down to the mobile
clinic the same way. Transportation becomes even more problematical
during the rainy season.
Bringing dental care to these hamlets is indeed a bold and
challenging initiative.
But thanks to the East Bali Poverty Project and the Bali International
Women’s Association, thousands of smiles will be lighting
up Bali’s poorest community over the next few years.
If you would like to learn more about EBPP or support one
of their programs, please visit www.east balipovertyproject.org
