Solar lanterns saving lives, lighting up Kenya

CNN News, by Emily Wither for CNN, July 15, 2011

It’s estimated that around a third Kenyans rely on kerosene lamps for
their lighting needs, but Kenyan company Solanterns is on a mission to
replace one million kerosene lanterns with solar-powered ones.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Around 75% of Kenyans rely on kerosene lamps for their lighting needs
• The smoke from kerosene lamps can lead to the development of respiratory illnesses
• Solanterns is aiming to replace one million kerosene lanterns with solar-powered ones
• The company says that each lantern will reduce CO2 emissions by 135 kilograms

(CNN) -- Every evening thousands of children in Kenya sit down and do their homework by kerosene-powered light.

However, the soot emitted from the burning lamps is not only an environmental hazard but the toxic fumes could be causing children serious harm and putting them at risk of respiratory illnesses.

Alice Njeri lives with her two sisters and their children in a suburb of Nairobi called Kayole. She says the indoor pollution can be difficult to live with.

"The Kerosene lamp emits smoke and gives my children eye problems and the smoke can bring them to tears," she said.

The United Nations Environmental Program says that in rural Kenya more women die of smoke-related illnesses than they do of malaria and tuberculosis. This smoke is from cooking and lighting fuels.

The inflammatory agents in kerosene lamps have been linked with everything from cancer to behavioral deficits. The lamps are also a safety risk as they can be easily knocked over and start fires in the home.

According to the CIA World Fact Book only a quarter of households in Kenya have electricity. It's estimated that around a third of Kenyans rely on kerosene lanterns for their lighting needs.

RELATED TOPICS

• Kenya
• Nairobi
• Global Climate Change

One company is on a mission to change this and is aiming to replace one million kerosene lanterns with solar-powered ones.

It's an ambitious project but one that the team feel can really make a difference to people living in rural Kenya who do not have access to electricity.

"The solar lights have a huge impact on health, education, productivity and overall improve the quality of people's lives," said Joseph Nganga from Solanterns, an initiative of Renewable Energy Ventures.

Its lanterns cost around $25 and are powered via a solar panel, which charges a lithium ion battery. Solanterns says it has reached over 1,500 households.

This was partly helped by USAID which bought and distributed 500 lanterns around Nairobi.

But the team still has a long way to go if it is to achieve its goal.

"We hope to expand access to solar lanterns through a wider product offering to meet different consumer needs and budgets," Nganga said.

"Critical to achieving our target of replacing one million kerosene lanterns with one million solar lanterns is consumer awareness," he added.

The company says that each lantern will reduce CO2 emissions by 135 kilograms and save 52 liters of kerosene over its lifetime.

This means that as well as the environmental benefits using solar lamps will save families money on fuel.

The organization estimates that over a three-year period families will save $140 in lighting costs, making solar lamps cheaper than kerosene lamps in the long-run.

Leah also lives in Kayole and has a son in his last year at primary school. She said: "With the way life is right now and high fuel prices I couldn't always manage to buy kerosene.

"Sometimes my child has homework that he couldn't do so the lantern has really helped me."

Solar lighting is also being credited with better grades for school children. According to Solantern's research, over half of children living in households with a solar lantern were able to study an extra two hours a night.

"My child's performance is different now because he could not do homework and study at night with the kerosene lamp," Leah added. "He performs much better now."

As well as using her solar lamp in the home, Njeri says that she uses it on her market stall in the evening. Its makers say it can lead to better sales at fruit and vegetable stands as produce is no longer spoiled by fumes from kerosene lamps.

"My kids tell me not to return to the kerosene lantern but to instead bury it," Njeri said.

Unhan introduces disaster management program

The Jakarta Post | Sat, 09/25/2010 11:30 AM

JAKARTA: Indonesian Defense University (Unhan) introduced a new master study program on disaster management for national security.

Unhan, a state university under the Defense Ministry, said the new program was aimed at producing graduates to meet the need for experts who could help mitigate the impact of disasters and rehabilitate disaster-hit areas.

Unhan rector Maj. Gen. Syarifudin Tippe said Indonesia was wracked by many disasters. “Not many people realize the importance of understanding disasters, how to prepare for them, what to do when disasters strike and how it impacts the defense system,” he said in press release made available on Friday.

Applicants to the program are required to have a minimum TOEFL score of 500 and minimum Academic Potential Test score of 550. The program is open to members of the military and police corps as well as civilians.

Unhan said it would grant full scholarships to all students of the program, including covering the cost of field study to universities at home and abroad.

Every academic year, Unhan accepts between 20 and 30 students for each program. —JP

Earthquake-Resistant Bricks Not Yet Patented

Tempo Interactive, Wednesday, 26 May, 2010 | 16:31 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Madiun:Earthquake-resistant bricks made by two students from High School Number 5 in Madiun, East Java, Nina Milasari, 17, and Christina Kartika Bintang Dewi, 15, have not been patented yet. “We have plans to patent them, but our primary mission is that these bricks can be utilized by the people,” said Imam Zuhri, a physics teacher at the school, yesterday.

Their discovery won them a gold medal in the environmental physics category in the International Environmental Project Olympiad 2010 for 13 to 18 year-old students in Istanbul, Turkey, on May 19 to 22.

Nina said their goal is merely to contribute something to the people. “It is up to the school whether to patent it or not,” she said.

ISHOMUDDIN

Locals learn quake-proof construction

Arghea Desafti Hapsari, The Jakarta Post, Padang Pariaman, Mon, 03/15/2010

The violent 7.9-magnitude earthquake that jolted West Sumatra in September last year destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses and other buildings, highlighting poor construction standards.

A survey by the University of Indonesia in the early weeks of the disaster found that most of the toppled houses had no steel reinforcement to support the brick walls. A local confirmed this, adding that in many houses, bricks were offset in an orderly stack.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post recently, 41-year-old construction worker Maryunis said that builders had been constructing houses in Padang Pariaman regency using “any means they knew”.

But with the bitter quake experience, Maryunis and many others in Padang Pariaman are now seeking to learn better construction methods that will make their houses safer should another quake hit the tectonically volatile area.

More than 100 locals have received training on how to build affordable, earthquake-proof houses, with another 25 to receive training this week.

The training is conducted by Build Change, an international not-for-profit social enterprise that designs earthquake-resistant houses.

At a busy construction site just behind a community office in the Sintuk Toboh Gadang subdistrict of Padang Pariaman, dozens of men build an annex office.

Participants of Build Change’s training, the men practice their newly learned skills: Two use their shovels to mix cement using the right composition.

Others try their hand at putting up a brick wall against a concrete footing they had previously laid out. Facilitators from Build Change monitor the activity, at times showing the men how to put enough mortar between two bricks.

Maryunis said, “The builders here usually skimp on the mortar.”

Build Change program coordinator Moslem explained that construction workers in the area worked in teams.

“They usually learn their skills from team leaders who learned from previous leaders. So the same incorrect construction methods are continuously propagated,” he added.

Moslem pointed out a structure: two concrete walls under a big tree. Only a couple on inches thick, the walls are not made of bricks, but of thick wire mesh plastered with concrete.

“We also teach them to build walls using this technique. This is safer than bricks, which could collapse when a major earthquake hits, and from the outside, it looks like an ordinary, permanent brick wall after we paint it,” he said.

Building a 36-square-meter house using this technique costs less than Rp 40 million (US$3,800), Moslem said, adding that a permanent house built using Build Change’s standard would cost between Rp 50 million to 60 million.

Moslem said homeowners could choose between using wire mesh or woven bamboo to make semipermanent walls.

“Both materials can be plastered with concrete, but given its elasticity, it is harder with woven bamboo,” he added.

He also said that while people in several areas in Padang Pariaman implemented the construction techniques taught by the organization, many others were not aware that materials other than bricks could be used to construct walls and that would be esthetically similar.

Maryunis said he planned to teach his new skills to fellow construction workers in his hometown, Toboh Mesjid village.

“It won’t be easy. They have been using the same methods for years and I don’t think they would be willing to adopt a new one.”

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Our beloved rivers of waste

Alexandra Hansen, Contributor The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 02/09/2010 11:40 AM

Home by the river: Residents perform various house chores in their homes located along the Ciliwung River in Jakarta. Millions of people rely on the river for their daily water needs. JP/Ricky Yudhistira

Standing on the bank on one of Jakarta’s many rivers, the experience is much the same across the board. Nothing you would hope for in a river is present in the city’s 13 main canals.

Clear water, the peaceful babble, trees and native flora lining the bed, native wildlife in and around the water and children paddling amongst the leaves have all been replaced by rubbish, disease-causing bacteria and pollution.

Standing on the edge of any of Jakarta’s canals is saddening; what once would have been a beautiful and serene place, is now a bed of pollution and the cause of illnesses such as typhoid, dysentery, cholera, E.coli-poisoning and amoebiasis.

So what has caused the rivers to become so polluted, and the water so unusable?

We have.

Many factors lead to water pollution of this extent, one of the main ones being sewage.

The water canals in Jakarta are largely used to flush human sewage, increasing the level of E.coli in the water, thus making it unfit for human consumption.

The nitrates and phosphates found in sewage, and in fertilizers, also lead to an over-stimulation in the growth of aquatic plants such as algae. An excess of algae clogs up the waterways, uses up dissolved oxygen as it decomposes, and blocks light to deeper waters. This in turn is very harmful to aquatic organisms such as fish, as it inhibits their respiratory ability.

Another factor contributing to water pollution is the large amount of rubbish and waste deposited into the river by inhabitants of the riverside.

All of the above are known as municipal pollution, pollution caused by homes and commercial establishments.

Add to those factors industrial pollution. Large amounts of industrial waste are deposited into the river system every day, allowing hazardous substances to flow freely in our precious water.

Garbage river: Two workers comb through garbage in the Ciliwung River. The piles of garbage found in the river contribute to the city’s annual flood problem. JP/P.J. Leo

Last, but not least, agriculture plays a significant role in polluting rivers. The erosion caused by crops devastates the river systems, and is the leading cause of water pollution in countries such as the US.

Chandra Samekto, a project officer for the Citarum River, says the problems are widespread and caused by many different factors.

“For the Citarum River especially, the problem is quite serious. This river is integral to Jakarta’s water supply and is a very strategic source to all of West Java.”

One of the main tasks of the Citarum project is to identify why the condition of the river is degrading, and what can be done to improve the situation.

“We have spent a lot of time researching and identifying the problems in the Citarum River, and have discovered that each segment has a different problem. For example, upstream, the problems are caused by industry. Adjacent to the river is a coal treatment plant, and the waste from materials used to treat the coal is dumped into the river. In the middle section of the river however, the main problem has to do with people’s sanitation habits. They dump waste and garbage, which is detrimental to the water quality.”

When asked whether the situation has improved recently, Samekto says the results are not promising.

“We definitely think the situation is getting worse.”

He adds it is very important we address the problem, and put more effort into improving the quality of the rivers, and in turn, the water quality in Indonesia, as the quality of the water could be a limiting factor to Indonesia’s economic development.

Double work: A woman washes clothes while taking care of her child on a wooden pontoon along the Ciliwung River. JP/P.J. Leo

“It is important that we as a society recognize the problem, and realize it is worsening, as perhaps this way people will make an effort to improve it.”

The Citarum River project has up to 80 plans in motion to improve the river, with an estimated cost of Rp 45 trillion (US$4.8 billion).

Plans include new water treatment facilities, water site management strategies, upstream conditioning and septic tanks.

Also included in their plans is System Rice Intensification (SRI), a program aimed at using less water when cultivating rice crops, for the same or better yield of crop.

In conjunction with these plans, it is important people do their bit in caring for their rivers and water canals.

“People do care,” says Samekto.

“But they need to collaborate with us, and replicate our actions. We hope to get support from everyone, and become a movement of sorts. If everyone knows the issues involved, if people realize the problem, we can help them change their behavior, and change [the behavior of] companies.

“The only way to do this is by creating awareness, by educating people. For example, a simple step to take is to stop littering in the rivers, dispose of your rubbish carefully,” he says.

The message is simple, and is known the world over, yet it seems somehow more difficult in practice.

“Yes, it is easy to see, but it will take more time to change people’s behavior.”

Jakarta city to set up fire-fighting academy

Antara News, Tuesday, February 2, 2010 20:11 WIB

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Jakarta city administration plans to set up a fire-fighting academy to improve the quality of the national capital`s anti-fire human resources, a spokesman said.

The academy would admit students from anywhere in the country and educate them up to Diploma III level.

"In the future, this academy will hopefully become a model other regions in the country can emulate to obtain competent and skilled fire fighters," Paimin Napitupulu, head of Jakarta cirty`s fire-fighting office, said here Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters after receiving a delegation from the Malaysian fire-fighting agency at his office, he said the Jakarta city administration would cooperate with the Malaysian fire-fighting agency and three Jakarta universities to compose the curricula and find the teaching staff for the planned academy.

It would be located in Ciracas, a suburb on Jakarta`s southern outskirts in an area that was formerly used for basic military training.

Paimin said the academy was needed to solve Jakarta`s chronic shortage of trained fire-fighters which now stood at about 4,000 men.

At present the city`s fire-fighting department had a force of 2, 847 men whereas the ideal number to serve Jakarta`s population of 10 million was about 7,521 men, he said.

The shortage of fire-fighters was evident in the field where a fire truck that normally should be manned by six men was in reality operated by only three men, Densely-populated Jakarta is rather prone to fires mostly caused by short circuits in inadequate or sub-standard power line installations.

In January 2010 alone, a total of 47 fires broke out in the Indonesian capital. As many as 30 of the fires were caused by electricity short circuits and total material damage was estimated to total Rp11.31 billion.

The January fires made 437 people or 35 families homeless, killed one person and injured seven others.

Schools get Rp 420m donation from Americans

Muhammad Nafik and Syofiardi Bachyul Jb. , The Jakarta Post, Padang | Fri, 01/22/2010 10:11 AM

A display of destruction: Padang Prayoga Foundation chairman Phillips Rusihan Sakti (right) shows photos of destroyed or damaged buildings from the Sept. 30, 2009 quake, to businessman Edward I. Wanandi at the foundation’s office in Padang, West Sumatra, on Thursday. JP/Syofiardi Bachyul Jb.

More than three months after a powerful earthquake devastated much of West Sumatra, foreign donations continue to pour in.

Two Islamic and Catholic schools in Padang, which were among those destroyed by the quake, received Rp 420 million in aid from Americans as part of efforts to help the victims.

The Wanandi family handed over Rp 210 million of the aid Thursday to the Islamic Adabiah education foundation and the same amount to the Catholic Padang Prayoga Foundation in two separate ceremonies in Padang.

“Almost all of the money are donations from American people, and the rest is from Indonesians living in Chicago,” said businessman Edward I. Wanandi, who represented the Wanandi family along with his brother, priest Markus S. Wanandi, in extending the aid fund.

Edward said the aid was raised during a dinner function he organized on Nov. 22, 2009, in cooperation with Loyola University of Chicago, the Indonesian Consulate General in Chicago and the Indonesians Living Abroad in Reach.

“At the event we collected up to US$45,000 from those in attendance,” said Edward, who is a graduate of Prayoga’s KR elementary school.

He said the two education foundations were awarded the donations were because both had “good reputations” in education development in Padang as well as “clear programs” to rebuild their destroyed schools.

“It’s the most aid the school has so far received [from individuals] after the quake,” said Prof. Muchlis Muchtar, Adabiah education foundation chairman.

He added that recently his institution had also received Rp 100 million from donors.

Muchlis said the quake had destroyed or damaged several of Adabiah’s school and office buildings as well as its mosque, costing the foundation Rp 4.5 billion.

“We have so far received a total of Rp 520 million from the government, alumni and others.”

Both Muchlis and Veridiana Somanto, who head the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Committee for Padang Diocese’s Buildings at the Padang Prayoga Foundation, expressed gratitude for the donations.

Veridiana said her institution still expected more donations as the quake caused almost Rp 100 billion in damages to its school buildings and cathedral.

Indonesian UNI To Build Renewable Energy Research Center

Tradinggmarkets, Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:33:15 EST

JAYAPURA, Papua, Jan 11, 2010 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) -- Cenderawaih State University (Uncen) will build a renewable energy research in Papua under an Indonesia-Dutch cooperation scheme.

This was disclosed by coordinator of a Technical Working Group for capacity development and strengthening for energy policy formulation and implementation of sustainable energy projects in Indonesia (CASINDO) Endang Hartiningsih on Sunday.

One of Casindo`s target is Papua, and Cenderawasih State University was chosen as technical team coordinator which will be responsible for each work program implementation.

"The Uncen team will conduct research and training programs like seminars and training on sustainable energy and energy efficiency," Endang who is also a lecturer at the Department of Mineral Engineering at the university.

Research will be on solar, hydro-electric and bio-energy.

"Solar energy is widely used in Papua, especially in the remote areas using solar cells, while hydro power is used for developing micro hydro power," he said.

Meanwhile, the bio-energy that will be studied is energy that comes from processing some parts of crops.

CASINDO has started in 2009 through 2011 as continuation of the project Contributing to poverty alleviation through regional energy planning in Indonesia which ended in 2008.

The CASINDO program which is part of the Indonesia-Dutch energy co-operation, is also conducted in North Sumatra, Central Java, Yogyakarta and West Nusa Tenggara.

CASINDO`s other partners in running the program are the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Technical Education Development Center, Regional Center for Energy Research of University of Muhammadiyah in Yogyakarta, North Sumatra University (USU), University of Mataram (Unram), and Diponegoro University (Undip).

The Dutch research team consists of the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands (ECN), Technical University of Eindhoven and the Educational Training Consultants (ETC).

Indonesia's National Energy policy said that in 2025, biofuel plays a bigger role of more than five per cent of the national energy consumption, as stated in Presidential Regulation No.5/2006.

(ANTARA) rw

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Indonesia's space agency prepares educational satellite

www.chinaview.cn 2009-12-12 09:10:43

JAKARTA, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's National Flight and Space Agency (LAPAN) will help launching program of communication satellite to support long distance education held by the Ministry for the National Education, Kompas daily quoted an official as saying on Saturday.

The satellite named after the country's prominent education hero Ki Hajar Dewantara will be connected to 50,000 points (schools).

The agency's head Adi Sadewo Salatun said on Friday that "tele-education satellite" will refer to concept implemented by many countries like India, China and Nigeria.

The Ki Hajar Dewantara Satellite Program will be prepared in three years, starting from system engineering, tele-education infrastructure preparation to the satellite launch and operation.

Currently, the program is still in feasible study phase, which is expected to take six months.

The satellite operation is expected to help solving problem of the lack of skilled educators and experts in remote areas, Adi said.

The infrastructure could provide knowledge dissemination to villages about health, cleanliness and personal development as well as to help professionals in increasing their knowledge.

The ministry allocated 200 million U.S. dollars for the program preparation to the satellite launch.

The tele-education satellite weighted 820 kg will be launched at the geo-stationer orbit or at height of 36,000 km. The equipment will be loaded with 12 transponders, consisting of education, telemedicine, defense and back-up ones.

The eight education transponder will serve interactive class in200 points and non-interactive class in 40,000 points.

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Key river suffers upstream, downstream pollution

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 12/11/2009 11:16 AM

Up a creek without a paddle: A survey team motors through the Citarum River estuary in Muara Gembong district, Bekasi. Despite frequent tidal floods, the river bank is home to many people who come from around the country to earn a living as fishermen. The Citarum River has often been called the world’s dirtiest river. Courtesy of Cita-Citarum/Diella Dachlan

Despite the country’s ambitious plans to provide sustainable access to clean water for 80 percent of the urban population by 2015, its capital is still struggling to fix an enduring problem facing one of its key rivers.

The target, set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), starkly contrasts with the fact that the Citarum River, one of the most vital sources of drinking water for Jakarta, is often referred to as the world’s dirtiest river.

Saiful, the new chairman of the Association of Indonesian Tap Water Companies (Perpamsi), said last Thursday in Batam only 40 percent of the urban population and less than 30 percent of the rural population had sustainable access to clean water.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) stated the Citarum River Basin Territory supported a population of 28 million people, produced 20 percent of Indonesia’s gross domestic product and provided 80 percent of the surface water supply to the capital.

Director of the National Development Planning Agency’s directorate of water resources and irrigation, M. Donny Azdan, said the river, which flows 300 km from Mount Gunung Wayang in West Java to the Pantai Bahagia coast in Bekasi, faces a multitude of problems, which the country is trying to tackle.

“The problem upstream is erosion due to agriculture, which dumps a lot of soil into the river. [Further downstream] there’s also the contamination by farm, domestic and industrial waste that is dumped into the river,” he said.

The Majalaya area in West Java, for example, is home to many textile industries that pollute the river, he said during a river expedition Saturday.

The two-day expedition was set up by the Association of Jungle Explorers and Mountain Climbers (Wanadri).

The Citarum was once a familiar training and exploration area for the association, which conducted its first expedition there in 1985, Abrar Prasodjo, the head of the expedition, said.

“The river is necessary for our purposes. We wanted to conduct a training session in Saguling [West Java] but the water was foamy,” he recalled.

Abrar said the expedition was expected to provide new information that would be relayed to the authorities and the community who would take the necessary steps to improve the state of the river, thus allowing the association’s members and the residents to benefit from Citarum’s water.

One man’s garbage: A man wades in the Citarum River in the Majalaya area, West Java next to a garbage pile on the riverbank. The water is heavily contaminated by untreated waste from textile plants. Courtesy of Cita-Citarum/Steve Griffiths

The heavy pollution of the river is also evident in its estuary in Muara Gembong, Bekasi.

An area in Muara Gembong, ironically named Pantai Bahagia (Happy Beach), constantly suffers from tidal and other floods. The coastline, once thick with mangroves, is now the site of a fishing village where wooden boats have to navigate through a layer of rubbish.

“Its as if the ground sinks lower by 10 centimeters each year,” Erik, a resident, said of the increasingly serious floods.

Carsim, another resident who was in an elevated sitting space to avoid coming in contact with the dirty water, said around 20 years ago, the area had not been as crowded as it was now and the mangrove forest dominated the landscape.

Abrar said the constant destruction of the mangrove forest also endangered the area’s ecosystem.

“There used to be a lot of birds and monkeys here, but now the mangrove is very thin,” he said as the expedition team navigated the river.

Donny said the road to restore, or at least improve, the Citarum River was a long and rocky one.

“We calculate there are around 80 separate actions that need to be taken, which will take around 15 to 20 years to do. The cost would be around Rp 35 trillion, [US$3.7 billion]” he said.

Given this estimate and the fact that the country has over 5,000 rivers with eleven of them critically polluted, would fulfilling the MDG for clean water be realistic?

“No,” he said, laughing. “We’re having problems with just one river!” (dis)

Village empowerment fund seen as time bomb for Papua

Nethy Darma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura, Papua | Sat, 11/14/2009 5:35 PM

Financial assistance worth Rp 100 million extended to each village in Papua will leave a time bomb that may explode in the coming few years, a conference hears.

Bintang Mountain representative to the international conference, Spey Bidana, said Papuan villages had heavily relied on the annual government aid and been reluctant to seek alternative sources of revenue.

“I am worried about the prospect of the program as it has created people’s dependency on the government,” Bidana said, referring to the annual village empowerment fund extended to remote villages to accelerate development there.

Bidana said the village people lacked experience to manage the fund. “They should have undergone training before the money was extended. People may think they can get huge money without breaking any sweat,” he said.

Another speaker, Josias Serontouw who represented customary communities, said the village empowerment fund had raised a question about fairness. He said a village inhabited by dozens of people received the same amount as an overpopulated village, which he said was unfair.

Agus Sumule, an advisor to the governor, said the provincial government had improved implementation of the scheme, including allocation of fund based on the size of population.

China`s Huwaei to set up training centers in Indonesia

Antara News, Friday, November 13, 2009 15:10 WIB

Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei plans to establish two major training centers and a Research & Development (R&D) center here, a senior Huawei official said on Thursday.

Huawei tech Investment President Director Ma Yue said that the planned training centers are expected to graduate 1,500 credible Indonesian telecommunication technicians each year.

According to Ma, Huawei has supplied telecommunication equipment for 9 mobile telecommunications operators operating in Indonesia to develop their GSM (Global System for Mobile) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) telecommunication networks.

One in five residents in Mimika illiterate

Markus Makur, The Jakarta Post, Mimika, Papua | Tue, 11/10/2009 9:10 PM

More than 22 percent of the population of the Mimika regency in Papua, or about 40,000 people there, are illiterate.

Mimika, with a population of 175,000, ranks fifth in term of the illiteracy rate in the province, after Wamena, Merauke, Paniai and Nabire regencies, said Yesaya Sombuk, head of Mimika Education Agency, on Tuesday.

Papua itself has the highest illiteracy rate among the country’s 33 provinces

The agency is offering a three-month literacy course in the regency’s 12 districts with 1,200 residents joining the program, which kicked off Tuesday.

Those who are illiterate – both native Papuans and migrants – are found not only in remote areas, but also in urban areas, including in Timika, the regency’s capital. The first course, however, is targeting those in the hinterlands, mountains and coastal areas.

Mimika is home to one of the world’s richest gold mines operated by US-based company PT Freeport Indonesia.

Study on the floor

The Jakarta Post | Mon, 10/19/2009 1:15 PM

Study on the floor: Students at Wojojati elementary school at Gondangwetan, Pasuruan, East Java, study while sitting on the floor on Monday morning as their collapsed school has not been repaired. Antara/Musyawir

Jakartans told to stop littering city rivers

Triwik Kurniasari, THE JAKARTA POST, JAKARTA | Tue, 03/31/2009 11:11 AM

Changing people’s mind-set about living healthy and keeping the environment clean is the main key to encouraging people to handle waste management issues, a discussion concluded on Monday.

Sanitation remains a major problem in the capital, with many Jakartans still disposing of human waste into rivers, and even using the rivers over lavatories when nature calls.

National Development and Planning Agency (Bappenas) wastewater unit head Nugroho Tri Utomo said many people did not heed the importance of defecating in lavatories.

“We can see many slum dwellers living along riverbanks, like the Ciliwung, choosing to defecate in the river for practical reasons,” he said.

“Besides, many people who have lavatories at home still build waste pipes from their toilets to nearby rivers. It’s just the same as defecating in the river.”

Most people, he added, were unaware that human waste could pollute river water and cause various diseases, like diarrhea and typhoid.

“But it’s not easy to kick off the habit, since disposing of human waste into rivers has been some kind of culture,” Nugroho said during a discussion about sanitation at Trisakti University.

Ariani Dwi Astuti, head of Trisakti’s School of Environmental Engineering, agreed.

She said it was necessary to create specific toilet designs for people with different backgrounds.

“It’s important to adapt the technology for the local community. We can create a dry toilet for people in East Nusa Tenggara, for instance, since the people usually defecate in dry open air,” Ariani said.

She added the media played a big role in raising awareness about the important of using proper lavatories.

“It’s not easy raising public awareness about using lavatories instead of rivers to defecate in,” she said.

“Putting up ads on local TV is a good and effective way of educating people. The city administration can also take part by giving sanitation education in schools.”

The government, through Vice President Jusuf Kalla, is targeting to rid Indonesia of the habit of defecating in open areas by 2014, in a bid to increase public health quality.

Naning Adisowo, chairwoman of the Indonesian Toilet Association (ATI), urged the city administration to procure more public toilets.

“If the administration provides appropriate toilets in public places, it will prevent people from urinating on bushes or trees,” she said.