Category: Cibening

This year Goldteak supported the school by donating books, children magazines,
encyclopedia and guidance books for teaching. This is not just a charity project,
but a program to help the schools teach the children for a successful future.
We have implemented a support program that requires that the children
participate in a business venture and earn some of the money needed to pay for
their supplies, and Goldteak matches that amount to help cover costs.
Goldteak also helped to enhance the teachers skills by providing four learning
days with an outside consultant.
This year marked great improvement in the competitions that schools participate
in, bringing home to Cibening more awards. The school has been chosen by the
local government in Sukabumi as a ‘Model School’ because of its growth and the
unique cooperation with a local corporation.
Goldteak is very proud of its commitment to the 3 P’s: People, Planet and Profit.
“Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in day out” (Robert Collier)

Every day, one or two guardians check the trees condition, they have to cut the wild grass around the trees and make sure that all tree get enough sun light and get enough nutrition (the wild grass takes the soil nutrition).

All trees have enough sun light and water, they have big trunk and wide leafs.

Every month it will grow new bud and the trunk will grow high and big.

Cibening village now is growing, not only the economic, social, religion but also education.

To manage the teak plantation is challenging, the maintenance should be done day by day. The guardians have to cut the grass, give fertilizer, check the trees, prune the branches, making the terraces, to measure the diameter and manage the dry leaves. The site manager has to be sure everything is done properly. After one or two years we can see the result of the work, the trees have grown very well and healthy, the hill looks greener.

The life in Cibening has a balance, the trees grow in the same time with the village has developed. Since Goldteak has developed the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programs. Not only people in plantation (guardians and their families) received the benefits but also the school community. Some of the guardians have grown vegetable and raise chicken, ducks and goats. School’s teachers taught the students how to plant the vegetables on their school yard (first project on the yard behind the school) after Goldteak gave them seeds (egg plant, spinach and tomatoes), in the last two months they have had their first harvest. The school has sold the vegetables to the parents, they collected some income. Now they are trying by themselves by open the land in the front yard.

If we pay attention the faces of the students several years ago, their present faces looks so much happier. Today they have many activities, beside their regular activities at school they also have another extra activities outside the school time. They can read many books, make some paintings/drawings, plant the green or help their parents to raise chicken, ducks or goats.

When we are talking about students, it means we are talking about all the children in Cibening. Today all the children who are about six or seven years old go to SD Cibening to get their elementary education. The babies and the children who are one to five years old still stay at home with their mother or their family at home. The children who had graduated from elementary school have continued their education to their secondary school outside of Cibening Village.

This year pak Parid’s son Amar Ani, 17 years old, just graduated from his elementary school. Amar Ani is a handicapped person, he has no legs and hands (Indonesia: tuna daksa) since he was born. Big question for his future, why it happened with him when other student graduates their elementary school when they are 11 or 12 years old. His parents (Paris & his wife) tried to treat him as a normal child, but it was not easy. Not many school would like to accept him as a normal person, and to sent him to a special school off course will not be easy, first they do not have much money (Parid has 8 children) and village or bigger village nearby also does not have one.

Nevertheless, they never gave up to gave him a formal education. Now when they want to send him to the secondary school they have a problem. Amar Ani was advised to procure a false (prostetics) arms and legs so he can follow the school activities. Parid’s family needs donators who can help him to support their son, Amar Ani. So he sent a letter to people inPetrolink or anybody who reads his letter who would like to help him.

West Java Province with 10 regents has a very large forest (764.387,59 ha), it is 20,62 % from the whole province area. Based on 2006 data, this province still has Productive forest 362.980,40 ha, Protected forest (including National Park) 228.727,11 ha, Conserved forest 172.680 ha and Mangrove forest 40.129,89 ha.

From the Productive forest, West Java got 200,675 m3 wood. Actually West Java needs about 4.000.000 m3 per year. Hutan Rakyat or forest managed by local people is about 214.892 ha and produced 893.980,75 m3 of wood.

From 580.000 ha critical forest, local government has planted trees on 357.000 ha, the rest 223.000 ha is still waiting to be recovered. Perhutani (Indonesian Forestry Company) with local people work together to complete the Rehabilitation Program in next few years.

Today, Indonesian Government supports any business institution or private company even individual to plant trees to make West Java green. Almost ten years, Goldteak has been taking part of this program in Cibening and Bumisari areas. Opening the land for planting trees has several benefits, to help the area more green, more water and to help the people get jobs and develop the economy and education.

To develop the local economy, Goldteak teaches the guardians and their families to be entrepreneurs. They learn how to raise the chicken, ducks, goats and make salted duck eggs. Kusnadi, one of the guardians has several chicken and goats, now he starts to raise a special goat “Domba Garut” (goat from Garut & well known has a high price), he also tried to raise broiler chicken.

Local ambulance service. Kasa was dehydrated and had to be taken to the hospital. The doctor prescribed bed rest and absolutely no walking, so the local villagers transported him by foot on the two kilometer walk to the plantation.

The children of Cibening village are happy to catch a ride with Zaini (GoldTeak’s local manager). The walk from the main road is a long one and the children have to walk this daily to go to middle school. Fortunatly the sun is shining and the road appears drys, as during the rainy season the road is often six-inches deep with mud.

GoldTeak is primarly a teak plantation, however, we multi-crop and have planted a percentage of our land with fruit trees like the orange, durian and guava trees that you see in the photos. Fruit trees mature more quickly than teak trees and allows us to start creating an income from the land to offset the long term costs of maintaining the teak wood.

Our GoldTeak Guardian Team takes a break from clearing the sea grass that grows between the trees. We try our best to remove as much as possible by hand, but in the rainy season the grasses seem to grow more quickly than we can clear them away !

Budi’s new baby girl. The family is growing on the plantation… a sure sign of wellbeing !

 A happy occasion !  The arrival of the baby Goats. For those of us who live a more urban existance this is a ”çute” and fun occassion, however, for the guardians on our land this is an added revenue source for their survival… for Parid our supervisor he gets half of my baby goat just for caring for the goat.

All our guardians make minimum wage, are provided with a house on the land and medical care. This money is significant because 6 years ago these 23 families had no prospects for work that would provide for their families. The majority of our staff

We encourage the growth of Micro-businesses that help the villagers and our guardians help themselves. During festivals, or as bonuses we give them animals or seeds to inter-crop vegetables between our trees and around their homes. But the most impressive thing is that our supervisors have taught the others, through example, to save some of their money to buy more chickens, goats and rabbits to raise and sell for extra cash. This may seem like minor income by our standards, but in their little village this makes them ”well off”. Their increased wealth also trickles down to the villagers who create services and businesses for our guardians — like transport services to move supplies in and out of the plantation, and small stores that sell needed items to neighbors.

The changes do not happen overnight but on every visit I notice some kind of improvement in the lives of everyone around the plantation.

Until next time, Stacy.

The GoldTeak families celebrate Eid al-Adha: The “Festival of Sacrifice” or “Greater Bairam”. It is a religious festival celebrated by Muslims all over the world. This year, GoldTeak’ guardians received donation from Zaini of two goats, they did the sacrifice in the field and they shared equally, so they got about two kg each.

The replanting of Acacia and Mahogany trees ruined by the fire has begun, and it will take one or two weeks. The replanting should be done during rainy season so they can grow strong to survive their first dry season.

Some of guardians continue to cut the grass, especially around the tree. The fruit trees have started to produce fruit.

The rainy season is synonymous with flu and cold season and the Cibening villagers are not exempt. Many use traditional methods to prevent illness like drinking tea or coffee with ginger; they also add more garlic to their meals. GoldTeak provide medicine for the guardians and their families. This year we are introducing a new program bringing medical assistance directly to the village.

All the guardians are happy when they receive their GoldTeak salary. For them a salary means a lot, they can buy rice, buy their children’s school need and buy a little seed to be planted around their house, and for the young guardians they learn how to save their money. Some of them buy chickens or goats to help them earn more money to buy a motorbike.