Following the Mountain Edge, Crossing a River, Going Up and Down

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

On this long trip on a beautiful day we carried educational materials for a new program.

We departed to meet a community people in a remote area of Papua. The journey began with a two-hour car trip, then we relied on our feet to reach our destination.

The village is in Wahana Visi Indonesia's target area for three integrated programs. The programs are in health, non-formal education, and traditional education.

During the trip, interesting and exhausting things happened one after another. One moment we had to walk along the mountain edge, and the next we had to cross a river.

We stopped for a moment, stretching our legs, hoping to get new energy. After taking a break we continued our trip. This cycle of mountains and rivers happened several times before we finally arrived in Wame in the early afternoon.

"Wa wa wa..." was the greeting by the community people who gathered at the yard of Wame Village head office.

Children, who were impatient to get candies, joined the village head and community people to welcome our arrival.

The next day we introduced our health and education programmes for about 30 people.

The presence of local staff was very important to facilitate the communication process because most of the community people used a local language.

During the conversation, the community members expressed their concerns for their village. One of the problems they face was in the area of elementary education. They said that headmaster and school teachers rarely came to the school, meaning their children did not receive the education they needed.

They said that they also faced health care problems. Since the location of Wane Village is difficult to reach, it takes the already limited number of health workers about 3.5 hours to reach them from the closest village.

Wahana Visi is working in their community to address these concerns.

*Written by Meilan Haro, Monitoring Evaluation Officer, Wahana Visi Indonesia at Jayawijaya operational office