The story begun between 2003 and 2004, when Fr. Bambang Triatmoko SJ was invited to attend a Church gathering of eight bishops and 50,000 youth, in a small village in Bali, Indonesia. From the Church’s perspective, those youth needed to gain more skills aside from the general or basic education they get from their local school. Compared to other region, their youth have very low skilled‐job, which was attributed to low government support to education.
At that time, Fr. Bambang responded only to a call to speak about the technical training opportunities for the youth. Eventually, the engagement broadened from designing youth trainings to further looking in to the island’s concern about water and livelihood. The people of Sumbawa are considered to be the poorest in the Lesser Sunda Islands. Initially, they only wanted to tap water from their spring so it could reach their individual homes; since then, the development is history.
Fr. Bambang and his team installed a pump system, which was locally called as a hydro pump. The project was not mainly focused on the pump construction but rather more on skills development, particularly for the youth. By establishing a training center and designing training modules, the youth were trained to fabricate, maintain, and repair their pump system. The idea is to establish first the training center and then construct the pump with their trainees i.e. the youth. Although the learning curve at the beginning was slow, the output was remarkable. The training center is operating well with the youth acquiring basic skills, which equip them to enter college or earn for a living after graduation.
Now that the training center is set up, the team sees the value of strengthening the local economy so that the initial effort is sustained. The vision is to improve the local economy that would keep the trainees stay in the island and eventually create a local industry at Sumbawa. A number of feasibility studies were initiated, among these are: cattle raising, mente, coffee, and cacao farming. The people are committed but the supply of the product is not sufficient to improve their income. Later, they found out that seaweeds are abundant in their area so Fr. Bambang went to the Ateneo de Zamboanga University (AdZU) in the Philippines to learn the industry of seaweeds culture.
Contacts were established in the Philippines both with AdZU and the local government of Zamboanga (in Dapitan). Unfortunately, private companies were not open to share their knowledge on seaweeds processing. It took six years for the team in Indonesia to master the processing of seaweeds; they learned to extract its natural color for dye. Along with the research, local government support in Indonesia was also established. Now, Indonesia,
particularly the community of Sumbawa, is one of the major producers of raw materials of dye.
Germinating from a ‘small’ Church’s request, the outcome has been tremendous. Not only did the community become self‐efficient, a network of relation is also established. Rooting from a simple desire of gaining access to water, a local economy is created, where community‐life is supported.
In continuing the effort on building sustainable life in Sumbawa, Fr. Bambang carries on linking with key individuals and institutions (including international) and developing simple technology, which community can manage on their own. Now, he is facilitating a project on solar energy that
would support biogas or bio‐fuel processing. Aside from having independent source of electricity, the project intends to give the community the ‘control’ on enterprising and gain an improved access to basic services.
Apart from addressing water, livelihood, and energy issues, developing housing design and technology that are resilient to tsunami and earthquake are also initiated. The research and development is continuous. The ATMI schools serve as the research and engineering arm while the ATMI‐BizDec (Business and Development and Ethics Center) focused on keeping the finances that support the education and technological needs of the schools. More than anything, Fr. Bambang facilitates the network across the region and Europe for better community‐life and governance in Lesser Sunda Islands.
(Last November 2010, Fr. Bambang invited Pedro Walpole to join a 3‐day field visit in the Lesser Sunda Islands, east from Java Island of Indonesia. Pedro mainly assessed the unproductive lands in the island and provided initial management strategies for action. Along with Pedro is a team of specialists that focused on entrepreneurship and solar energy development for local communities. The visit emphasized on the understanding of the watersheds and how the locals can manage the relations within it effectively. Significantly, greater impact is achieved through work collaboration, with collaboration requiring broader capacity building. The engagement does not call for formal relations rather a more grounded experience – relevant to the community’s needs and culture.)