FEEDBACK AND RESULTS FROM INDONESIA
My name is Carlos Ferrándiz, President of the NGO Harapan Project, which helps the local population of the island of Sumba
wa in Indonesia. I was a lawyer in Spain at a large law firm (PriceWaterhouseCoopers), and in 2005 I made a vacation trip to Indonesia that totally changed my life. After being in Bali for one week, I travelled to the island of Sumbawa. Upon arriving on the island, I was totally devastated by the enormous poverty that I saw in the place. Sumbawa, despite being an island much larger than Bali, barely receives few tourists, and local population lives in conditions of extreme poverty and absolute precariousness.
Profiting my stay in Sumbawa, I began to teach English. The first day about two hundred people came to my class and every day more and more people joined. At that moment I understood the enormous need they had and their desire to change their future, and that no one had ever offered them a helping hand before. At that moment the Harapan Project was born.
I decided then that I was going to change my life, quit my job as a lawyer in Spain, create a humanitarian project and dedicate my life to help the population in Sumbawa, where I have lived for 13 years now.
We carry out, among others, the following programs:
– Educational program: we teach children in local schools.
– Medical program: we help all sick children in the district.
– Organic agriculture program: We teach the local population organic and hydroponic agriculture in our agricultural school.
We have been collaborating with Priscilla Hall Memorial Foundation and Food Plant Solutions for many years now. Local population in Sumbawa suffers from severe malnutrition, due to the economic precariousness in which they live, and the lack of education on nutrition. Many pregnant women suffer from severe malnutrition and causes many babies to be born with serious malformations (cleft lip, cases of hydrocephalus, newborn children with tumors…). Thanks to Food Plant Solutions program to fight malnutrition, we are improving the living conditions of the entire population, teaching the population how they can improve their nutrition with a healthy diet with local plants and vegetables.
I believe that we are in this world to be a better person every day, and without a doubt we achieve that by helping those most in need.
Carlos Ferrándiz
President NGO Harapan Project