GEOGRAPHY: Kelapa Dua is a remote rural village located in the Tangerang District of the Province of West Java, Indonesia. Kelapa Dua is 36 kilometers southwest of the capital city of Jakarta and lies in the midst of sprawling, terraced rice lands.
POPULATION: The Islamic Village School, one-half kilometer distant, draws about ten percent of the school-age children, few of whom remain beyond the fourth grade. Illiteracy is estimated at 80 percent overall, and 95 percent among those over 25 years of age.
Marriage occurs for women usually during the ages from twelve to fifteen and most men are married before age twenty. Except for a local midwife, medical care requires a six-kilometer trip to Tangerang over roads sometimes impassable in the rainy season. Three village units called “kampungs”, Asam, Nurdin and Dahung are bounded on the south by the Islamic Village and facing the rice paddies on the north, west and east. An unpaved road links the approximately 1500 inhabitants to the major town of Tangerang six kilometers to the north. Overlapping leadership systems relate the three kampungs in both traditional and modern structures for social care.
CHALLENGES: Kelapa Dua Human Deveiopment Project includes the three interrelated kampungs of Asam, Nurdin and Dahung which, along with five other kampungs. A new international airport is now being built 25 kilometers from Tangerang and large – scale irrigation projects promise a future of intense development and accelerating change. As Tangerang becomes absorbed into the greater metropolitan area of Jakarta, the struggle to emerge from a rural past will become more acute and the complexity of providing adequate services to the network of villages in the surrounding countryside will be intensified. Malnutrition is a major problem. Bamboo and thatched homes, owned by villagers, house large extended families. Occasional glass windows, tile roofs or gasoline lanterns vary the normal pattern of the packed-earth floors, windowless walls, and oil lamps. One stream is used both for washing and human waste. Most households have transistor radios. Approximately 50 percent of the families own and farm small plots, growing mainly rice and tapioca. The people of Kelapa Dua see that the future of their village requires a conscious development of communtiy style in terms of community facilities and identiy. They are anxious to establish recreational areas for children and youth, especially a sports field. A key to community identity was seen to be leadership develoopment, people want better inter-village communication, skills in entrepreneurship and liaison with the local government. Kelapa Dua residents desire ways to celebrate their identity through telling traditional and modern stories, using symbols to mark the continuity and singing local songs. Overall there is a longing in Kelapa Dua for a new cooperative spirit.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Rice production has, through experimental use of hybrid varieties, fertilizers and insecticides, more than doubled, taking the village from a point of 70% sufficiency to one of surplus.
Individual employment in non-agricultural work has increased by 115 new jobs, a factor which has contributed to a tripled average family income over the four years.
46 new houses have been built and 29 other renovated and a new community center was built entirely by village labour, without outside supervision and involving over 100 residents in corporate workdays.
Four other projects have been catalyzed and extended to 13 additional villages.
Clean water is now available at 10 new communal laundry-bath-toilet facilities spread through out the village.
The health care program has reduced cholera and gastro-enteritis by 90% and 80% respectively.
605 participants in 28 training events learned everything from chicken management to baby care.
Women have broken free from traditional roles and taken responsibility in arenas such as preschool.
Marriage occurs for women usually during the ages from twelve to fifteen and most men are married before age twenty. Except for a local midwife, medical care requires a six-kilometer trip to Tangerang over roads sometimes impassable in the rainy season. Three village units called “kampungs”, Asam, Nurdin and Dahung are bounded on the south by the Islamic Village and facing the rice paddies on the north, west and east. An unpaved road links the approximately 1500 inhabitants to the major town of Tangerang six kilometers to the north. Overlapping leadership systems relate the three kampungs in both traditional and modern structures for social care.