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Welcome to the new SDIA Member Project, Children’s Vision

During a 2004 trip to Bolivia, Isaac Goff, founder of Dharma Trading Company in the USA, discovered that Bolivia does not have a program for screening young children for vision problems as is common in the USA. At the same time the cost of a private eye exam and corrective lenses is totally out of reach of the poorest children — indigenous kids for the most part. In partnership with Solidarity Bridge in the USA, the project hired a Bolivian coordinator and started testing children’s eyes. They have doubled their capacity this year and plan to screen 12,000 children, about twenty percent of whom will need eye glasses, which the project will provide. SDIA hopes to work with Isaac to extend this service to other countries, such as DR Congo, where eye problems in many children continue to go undiagnosed and untreated. Congratulations Isaac and Dharma Trading for this initiative! Children’s Vision has joined as an Associate Member of SDIA. Read more about the project on our website.

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Sofiah MacKay is new SD Australia chair

Subud Australia recently held its National Congress and Sofiah MacKay was tested in to be the new Susila Dharma Australia chair. Thank-you to Renee Goetz from Brisbane, the outgoing chair, for working with us in the SD network for the past two years and for her support to the ICDP program.  About her development experience, Sofiah writes:

…after 4 years with Oxfam (the last year in Vanuatu I worked on  a youth-focused HIV prevention and sexual health program), I came back to Australia and did some contract work with the Australian Department of Health. Then I moved to AusAID which is where I am now. I've been there one and a half years and work on HIV policy and programs that are mainly focused on Asia Pacific. Last year I was able to attend the June HIV UNGASS review meeting in New York as part of the Australian delegation and got a sense of the global picture. Key elements of my role include contract managing a regional HIV workforce capacity building program, supporting the implementation of Australia's international HIV policy, and managing grants to regional and international partners. Of all the different work I have done, what I enjoy most is work that involves supporting people's learning and development — whether community development, groups or individuals.

Congratulations Sofiah! You can reach Sofiah and her team at sd-australia@susiladharma.org

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Special Feature:
Focus on SD in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Local Capacity Building Continues

During the joint WSA and SDIA visit to DRC last summer, SDIA supported SD DR Congo to deliver a three-day training event on project management as part of the SDIA Capacity Building Program. As promised, the follow-up training session was held on December 13th to 15th in Kinshasa. Charlotte Ndona, chair of SD DRC described the event to Virginia:

“The follow-up training was attended by 26 people from Subud and the community, representing all our SD projects, the Subud DRC National Committee and the Wings – SICA, Youth, SES and SD of course. The male Kedjiwaan Counsellor and two group-chairs also participated. The training was led by Guy Mudumbula, of the CRONG network in Kinshasa who was one of our trainers for the first capacity building activity. The training was intended to reinforce and go beyond what we had learned in the June workshop. Guy had us doing a lot of practical exercises to demonstrate that we had the ability to plan and monitor our projects based on the Results-based Management approach. We analysed and worked through members’ projects in the area of health, education and community development. Guy wanted us to understand that as project leaders we need to know the reality of the community and get its participation in order to plan projects that really will serve the community. Among other things, he had us go out and interview families to gather data about the community and bring it back so we could analyse what we had learned together. This type of training is really what our projects need in order to strengthen their work methods and knowledge. Now we need to see how well project leaders and the National Committee are able to apply this knowledge in terms of their proposals to Subud and non-Subud donor agencies!”

Albadi School and Orphanage “The Water is Keeping Well”

As Albert DILUA MBANZILA has been sick with flu, his wife Rose sent us an update on the Albadi School and Orphanage in Inkisi, which received SD funding in 2007 and 2008 to build classrooms, toilets, running water and electricity:

The work at the Orphanage and School is on track. The water cistern is being tested and we are noticing with joy that the water is keeping well. The electrical installation is now completed and we are expecting the connection notice from the electric company soon. Our sincere thanks for the $620 donation sent to the Albadi School. We were able to pay the hospital fees for two orphans suffering from measles and one suffering from acute chickenpox, the maintenance of the car and the start of driving-school for five children.

Supporting Subud Entrepreneurs through Micro-Finance, Savings and Loans

During the Joint ISC-WSC-SDIA visit in June 2008, Albert DILUA MBANZILA, SES DRC chair, Charlotte Ndona, SD DRC Chair and Virginia Thomas of SDIA worked together on a plan to develop a Savings and Loan scheme that would allow Subud entrepreneurs to be able to access small loans based on their savings, and eventually, outside donations. Albert now reports:

“The Caisse Mutuelle d'Épargne et de Crédit (Mutual Saving and Credit Union), or CAMEC of Inkisi accepted us for a microcredit program. They will sponsor the project and deliver technical training, follow-up and monitoring. It is possible for us to be located at Nkandu (Inkisi), Kinshasa or anywhere else.”

We will keep you informed as this initiative develops.

Lemba Imbu School is working with World Vision on a new community environmental project and sends two requests to SD

This year Lemba Imbu School, on the outskirts of Kinshasa, is working on an exciting new income-generating and environmental project with support from World Vision and funding from the Canadian government. The project will increase incomes of local families by enabling them to produce their own organic fertilisers from composted materials. Whereas World Vision had up until last year supported school fees directly, they have changed their strategy and now support to supporting families and schools to increase their income directly through increased food production and eliminating costs of chemical fertilisers.

Following on the Project Planning Management Training provided by SDIA with funds from the Blond Trust, Lemba Imbu School on the outskirts of Kinshasa has submitted a request for two grants:

Lemba Imbu School is requesting $9,597 (USD) to run their school program which serves 486 pupils between the ages of five to eighteen years old as well as 86 orphans or destitute children. The funds will meet expenses like teachers’ salaries, administration costs and materials. World Vision is providing books and didactic materials only this year.

Lemba Imbu is also requesting another grant of $6582 (USD)to develop an infirmary close to the school. The community needs the infirmary because there are many difficulties and endemic illnesses that threaten the population of Lemba Imbu. There is no viable health centre to take care of primary health care except a few emergency dispensaries. Once the activity starts, the income generated by the health care will enable to pay the staff (maximum 5 people), to purchase the medical supplies and will contribute fifteen percent of its proceeds to the school Charlotte writes:

“As the services of the school became valued by the local and neighbouring population (around 16 000 inhabitants in the district), the sanitary authorities and the community asked us if we could do something in the health field. We agreed and bought a house that was in need of rehabilitation with the Blond Trust grant in 2005. We want to have our own centre to fulfil the needs of the community and of the school and we hope it will eventually become self-sufficient and contribute a little to the running of the school.”

Polyclinique Yenge accepted as part of World Bank Health Sector Rehabilitation Support Project

Yenge Polyclinic in the slums of Kinshasa is highly respected by the community for its work to prevent and treat malaria, diarrheal infections, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDs among other common killers. Maternal and infant mortality here are very high, but now problems like high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke are on the rise too. Many pregnant women can't afford healthcare and suffer from infections and complications related to childbirth. One focus of Yenge Polyclinic is to create and expand a network of community outreach workers (mainly mothers) who are trained in reproductive health, immunisation and infectious diseases and who can work with the clinic to identify cases that require healthcare services and disease prevention. Zola Ferdinand, project leader, reports that in November 2008, Yenge distributed 57,770 insecticide-infused mosquito nets to 2,885 families in their health area.

Now Yenge Polyclinic is in the final stages of the evaluation and will soon be part of the $150 million (USD) World Bank’s “Health Sector Rehabilitation Support Project” which aims to guarantee the populations in the targeted zones access to a variety of high-quality basic health services and effective use of these services. The Health Sector Rehabilitation Project will pilot a new approach to provide the poorest people in selected health zones with access to and use of a well-defined package of high-quality essential health services. Yenge Polyclinic will be part of the implementation of the Ministry of Health's (MOH) Package of Essential Health Services (EHS) in 83 selected Health Zones in the provinces of Equateur, Katanga, Maniema, Bandundu, and Kinshasa. The project will support a scaling-up of key malaria control interventions, assess the performance of the clinics and health centers, and provide constructive feedback and share best practices that will help shape DR Congo’s public health policies. Congratulations to Zola and Yenge Polyclinic!

To support the work of Yenge Clinic and improvements to the building please go to our Donate Now web page.

Kimpemba Medical School begins construction of the Elegance Teaching Clinic

Thanks to the support of SDIA, SD Canada, SD Britain, SD France, SD Netherlands and the Blond Trust, SDIA has been able to raise $7,000 (USD) for the construction of the Elegance teaching clinic attached to the Kimpemba Medical School in an isolated village in Lower Congo Province, 60 kilometres from Inkisi. $500 will be used to help SD DRC monitor and assist the project implementation. $3000 will be provided in cash and kind by the local community, whose members will form and bake the bricks to be used in the construction. In DR Congo, where the poor have to pay from their pockets for any kind of health service, SDIA has challenged Kimpemba Medical School to ensure that the clinic we help finance will ultimately help those who do not have the means to pay for the healthcare they need.

Emmanuel Luyeye, project leader, explains the need for the clinic and their plan to ensure the clinic will provide accessible and quality care even to the poorest:

We decided that the major objective for the clinic is to provide access to quality healthcare starting from the year 2010 to all the inhabitants, to a level of health that will be socially and economically accessible and acceptable to the people and local health authorities.

Primary Healthcare should be designed according to the realities of the rural population so it fits the needs of the community and is an integral part of the national healthcare systems and other programmes that were set up to support the activities of remote and isolated health centres like ours. We also feel that decisions related to healthcare should be the result of a continuous consultation between the population and health services providers, based on local resources and providing care at a reasonable cost, while emphasizing prevention, promotion, rehabilitation and curative medicine.

To this end, Clinic Elegance will:

• Promote personal involvement of individuals who are able to mobilize others to build health awareness and improve prevention and treatment
• Identify and train the local leaders who will help ensure the implementation of activities at the rural community level
• Build people's capacity and give them the means to participate in Healthcare through developing Health Mutual Organizations
• Create networks that respect the Public Services, the NGOs and the people in charge of the local and peripheral health structures that are involved.

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Links to the Global Community

Solen Gratiet Selected for UN Training

Alex Woodward to attend UNICEF NGO meeting

SDIA’s Permanent Representatives to the UN for 2009

Each year, we are asked to appoint volunteer representatives who can attend NGO meetings at the UN on behalf of SDIA and WSA. Thanks to the following volunteers, most of who live near the three cities where the UN meetings take place:

New York: Alexandra Woodward, Garrett Thomson, Myra Margolin

Geneva: Katherine Carré, Raphael Bate, Solen Lees Gratiet, Frédéric Richard and Amalia Rasheed

Vienna: Frédéric Richard

SDIA’s UN Agenda for 2009

To help focus its limited resources for participating in UN related events, SDIA has set the following priorities for its activities in 2009:

• Regular attendance of the NGO Committee on UNICEF and UNICEF's Annual Meeting in New York,
• The Social Development Forum in New York,
• If the financial means and human resources are available, to attend all three Human Rights Commission sessions in Geneva,
• Undertake a survey of Subud projects on their work regarding Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
• Publish at least one report on UN activities and matters,
• Submit the Quadrenniel Report to ECOSOC, which is a requirement for SDIA maintaining its Consultative Status.

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From the SDIA Office

Online volunteering opportunity

Like the UN, we recruit online volunteers!

The eNews is brought to you in French and Spanish by a small but dedicated team of volunteer translators. The role of translator is an essential one which contributes to the full participation of Spanish and French-speaking Subud members in SD work and in the SD Network. If your mother tongue is French or Spanish and you feel you could help us in the important task of translating the eNews from English, please get in touch with our translations coordinator at solen@susiladharma.org. We can't offer payment, but we can offer team membership and our sincere thanks for helping us bring network news to our many members in Spanish and French-speaking countries!

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Join the Register of the SD Bed & Breakfast & Donate to Susila Dharma!

You have probably had brothers & sisters staying over with you many times. How about next time they come, ask them to make a donation to Susila Dharma through our “SD B&B” Fund? Subud France and Spain thought up this idea a few years ago. They called it the Susila Dharma B&B and, voilà! the Fund is growing! We are now updating the B&B Register, where we will connect potential hosts with visitors. Would you like to join? Why not be host or guest as and when it suits you and your family?

• Put your name down as a host & offer accommodation. — Click Here
• Put your name down as a visitor if you intend to travel. — Click Here
• Find more information about SD B&B. &mdash Click Here

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Three Reports Published

SDIA Governance & Development Report

Working in collaboration with the WSA Forum, SDIA has been participating for the last two years in a research project to analyse how projects associated with SDIA have approached the very important issue of influencing governance to bring about social change. After surveying eight projects and one SD National, and holding a workshop in Amanecer last summer, SDIA’s report about this research project is complete. — Click Here.

Gathering of the Americas: SDIA Conference Report 2008

To get a quick overview of what went on at Amanecer last summer, SDIA has produced a conference report describing the pre-conference capacity building program, the Susila Dharma Day, the Annual General Meeting and a little about some of the workshops offered. Complete with photos. Take a look! — Click Here.

Educators’ Workshop Report - Amanecer, 2008

Last July as part of the SD Conference in Amanecer, Colombia, Fernando Fatah, the chair of Subud Mexico facilitated a two-day educators’ workshop with approximately 25 participants. You can read a report about this workshop. — Click Here.

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The SDIA Network eNews is published once a month from information sent in to the office. We welcome news items. Deadline for submissions is the middle of each month. Contact us at info@susiladharma.org

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