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.
