Hello everyone,
Peter Thorsen, former Chair of SD Norway, trained children in drawing and painting on the weekends at CCD in India.
In our March issue of the SD Network eNews we send you project news from…
- A joint report from India and Norway,
- Tierraviva’s achievements last year,
- New environmental projects for Kalimantan (YTS),
- Teacher Training starts at BCU School,
- News from School Without Violence, Serbia.
Myra Margolin and Alex Woodward report on their recent UN experiences.
There are opportunities for…
- Volunteer work camp in Colombia,
- The newly launched Subud Education fund, and
- Enterprises to join the Enterprise Sponsorship Program in support of Susila Dharma.
The Office draws your attention to…
- Six other new grant requests on the web,
- Our thanks to volunteer translators,
- A chance to prepare for Earth Summit 2012.
Happy reading everyone!
From SDIA Office Team
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Project News
Centre for Culture and Development (CCD) expands
The new Meeting Hall at the CCD Training Centre.
There is a new activities report from CCD in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. This project functions as a resource and knowledge centre in capacity building and educating local villagers in livelihood skills for poverty reduction, food security and organic farming methods, climate change and global warming education, and folk arts for development communication.
Peter Thorsen, former chair of SD Norway, spent a month living in the project and helped with a number of new activities supported by SD Norway. CCD has improved the infrastructure of the Centre and built a medicinal herb garden, started a women’s tailoring institute and a children’s education fund, and created a model to help teach about water conservation. Peter Thorsen also taught painting and drawing to the children every weekend.
Another new activity at the CCD is a project initiated by Oliver Zielke (Canada), Gabriel Cheifetz (USA) and Samy to field test the YODIGO Literacy learning software. Their goal to raise $5000 for this pilot project has been reached with the support of SD Canada and SDIA who channel the funds to CCD. We look forward to sharing a report on the results of the field testing of this new and innovative learning program.
Read the full report from Samy and Peter.
A successful year for Tierraviva
A prisoner with her baby.
2008 has been quite a year for Tierraviva project in Argentina. It has seen the project working on a national level in several provinces, winning outside funding, being invited to take part in an event organised by UNICEF, establishing its official headquarters, and becoming a legal entity. This project started in 2001 and encourages the development of vulnerable communities, especially children and women deprived of their freedom, through strengthening human and social capital. This is achieved by generating development projects which promote self esteem and resourcefulness through respect for differences and the affirmation of the individual. Although Tierraviva has won grants and contracts for specific programmes, all its administrative overheads still need to be met. The organisation still needs our help, then, to fund its first steps as a fledgling legal entity.
Read the full article about Tierraviva in 2008 and find out more on their webpage.
Read the Tierraviva Asociación Civil grant request to help them with their first year of operation.
Yayasan Tambuhak Sinta YTS Branches Out
Tapping rubber trees.
YTS has obtained funding for four projects with a strong environmental focus. This represents a branching out from their traditional work which is focused on governance building and sustainable community livelihoods. The reason for this is that the traditional funding source of the mineral exploration company has dropped in the wake of the current global financial crisis. The projects are:
- rehabilitating and revitalizing large areas of natural habitat destroyed by a failed mega rice project and involving 227 villages
- translating and distributing a book on environmental health into Indonesian
- growing and planting high-yield rubber seedlings from seed to benefit 11 villages
- following on the UNIDO Global Mercury Project, building awareness of the serious health damages from exposure to mercury
YTS has also launched an exciting and innovative new website where you can learn more. Looking at it takes you right into the jungle!
Read the Yayasan Tambuhak Sinta (YTS) request for improving governance in a specific region.
BCU School - Teachers Trained and Bus Delivered
Teachers at the training session.
After many months of preparation, the first session of teacher training took place at Bina Cita Utama School (BCU) last month. Sixteen principals and senior teachers from local government schools along with four BCU teachers took part in the first of nine weekly workshops delivered by Muhsin Maltezos and his wife Siti. During the next 12 months the program will train four groups of 20 local teachers in practical, child-centered teaching methods. Each of those 80 teachers have daily contact with at least 40 students, which means there will be thousands of local students on the receiving end of some good teaching practice.
Read the full article about this program.
Congratulations to Subud Japan for raising the funds to purchase the much needed bus for BCU which was finally delivered in February. Chairperson Utami Geiger wrote to us:
Finally, after eight months of waiting, the school bus arrived in Rungan Sari last week, and tomorrow will be the first day the bus will be used to transport the school children and teachers from Palangkaraya to Tangkiling and back. Last week the school held a selamatan for the bus to thank Almighty God and to pray for, and thank, the donors who have made this happen. The addition of the school bus created a shared feeling of pride for us, the children and their parents. There is a real sense of pride and the bus gives the school more credibility. We feel that having the bus going around town with the school’s name and logo will bring a lot more students to enrol, and is a very good and effective promotion and advertisement.
Read the Sekolah Bina Cita Utama (BCU) request in to help them purchase premises.
SD Serbia School Without Violence Update
School without Violence, Serbia.
The primary school, “1st October” in Botos, is located in the Municipality of Zrenjanin and has 172 schoolchildren, nine of whom have special needs. In the funding application for the programme “School without Violence” the school reported frequent incidents of violence among children within the school and also violent behaviour within the families. The main objective for implementing the programme is to change behaviour and reduce tolerance to violent behaviour among children.
A grade-three student sums up the situation this way, “Stronger students beat weaker students, and then weaker students beat the younger ones”.
The following children’s statements reflect their expectations from this programme:
“If our school manages to implement this programme, there will be more good students”, said a fourth-grade student.
“This programme will enable me to love break-time within classes” (sixth grade student).
“In order to make friends and not blame each other” (eighth grade student).
“In order to feel good at school, not to be afraid of older students” (third grade student).
“I would like to have school meal in peace” (fourth grade student).
“I would like to go to the toilet without any fear” (sixth grade student).
Read the full report here.
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UN Activities
Commission on Social Development
“Development for all is central to the United Nations’ mission. Together with security, and respect for human rights, it represents our core aspirations for a peaceful and better world.” Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations
In her article on the 47th UN Session of the Commission on Social Development in New York, Myra Margolin deftly pulls together definitions to clarify our understanding of social integration, what she learned from this meeting, her observations of the UN processes and her experience as a Subud member.
It was extremely powerful to hear representatives of the 46 member states speak frankly and explicitly about creating societies in which individual differences are valued and respected and in which no one is marginalized or denied access to resources based on these differences (e.g. gender, race, age, disability, etc.). Ideas such as these are often dismissed as naïve or idealistic. It has been my experience in academia that such idealism is often not taken seriously or is seen as unrealistic or unscientific. I rarely hear politicians speak openly about the need to eradicate poverty (in the United States we seem to focus on “the middle class”), address discrimination, empower those who are marginalized, or provide health care as a basic human right. It was extremely refreshing and heartening to hear people in positions of power speaking directly and urgently about these matters.
Read Myra’s full report.
UNICEF NGO Committee
As announced in the last eNews Alexandra Woodward recently attended a meeting of the UNICEF NGO Committee in New York. This was Alexandra’s first attendance at a United Nations event, and gave her an insight into the workings of organisations involved in the UN. She also had a chance to present the work that SD members carry out with children, in particular ICDP, and to make contacts with other organisations and working groups active on specific issues such as children without parents.
Read Alexandra’s full report.
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Opportunities
Subud Volunteer Work Camp
Building, teaching, and language classes at the Volunteer Working Camp at Amanecer, Colombia.
This summer, SDIA/SYA are hosting the first ever volunteer working camp. From June 12 to July 12, 2009, 15 young Subud people will work for Susila Dharma in Colombia to build ecological pathways and classrooms for Fundación Amanecer’s school for underprivileged children. They will also be involved in designing and executing English and art workshops with the children. As part of the intercultural experience, they will take language classes, go on weekend trips, and visit homes from the local area. There will be a strong spiritual component focused on developing and harmonizing the inner and outer selves through latihan, testing, and workshops. Opened youth, 18+, are expected to apply by March 12th, and although part of the expenses will be covered by the program, each volunteer will be required to pay US$600 + airfare through creative fundraising efforts, donations, or their own employment.
Elder members, we need your support to make this happen! If you can, please donate through SDIA, so that young people can attend the camp
Read Alex’s full article on the SDIA blog.
Subud Education Fund Launched!
A scholarship winner from A Child’s Garden of Peace project in Brazil.
The World Subud Association Care Support Team has officially launched the Subud Education Fund to begin meeting some of the educational needs of Subud members and their families through a scholarship fund thanks to the generous support of the Muhammad Subuh Foundation. Since our focus in Susila Dharma is development, we specially urge Subud members in developing countries to consider applying if they have difficulty supporting themselves or their children to complete their education.
You can check out how to apply and download an application by going to the Subud World News website or contacting Kumari Beck at kumari_beck@telus.net. The deadline for applications for this first set of awards is March 31, 2009.
We Welcome Our First Two ESP Members!
Recently SDIA initiated a program called Enterprise Sponsorship Program to encourage businesses to support the work of Susila Dharma. Now we are happy to announce our first two Sponsors have signed up:
Shepherds Watch, Ltd., Canada: Shepherds Watch is in the gift business, making beautiful, wearable sundials and garden sundials. It was incorporated in 1976 and has been operating for 32 years.
Thanks Harris Morrison!
Used Books Search Worldwide: A used books meta-search engine for second hand, antiquarian, rare and out of print books and textbooks.
Thanks Muchtar Nankivell!
Click here to find out more details about our sponsors and the ESP program.
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From the Office
New Funding Requests Posted
As a service to projects in need of funds and those seeking to support worthy projects, SDIA posts grant requests on the website. We also post a Grant Matrix to show which SD nationals are supporting which projects. In addition to the requests already mentioned we have another six requests up
Thanks to new and faithful “old” translators!
Thank you to Salman Dominique Anglesio (France) and Nathan Nudman G (Chile) who offered to help with translation after our last call for help. Thanks also to our continuing faithful translators: Emmanuel Fajardo, David McCormick and Natalia Segal (Spanish) and Samuel Chapleau, Raphaelle Chapleau, Lahana Doucet, Dahlan Bécart, Brianne Delcourt and Joseph Delcourt (French). Where would we be without you?
Calling Volunteers for Earth Summit 2012 Working Group
Do you work in the area of environment, climate change, ecology or sustainable development and are you interested in joining an Earth Summit 2012 working group to prepare for the next big international meeting on this topic? If yes, please email Victor Margolin, who is heading up the group, at victor@uic.edu.
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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