Tuesday, August 28, 2007



New House using earth compressed block. I think this building is more quake resistant.





We can see how our dream starts to grow. It would be an entry point for 'fighting against poverty and marginalization'

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I just re-read the notes I got from Makara. In the notes (small paper) was sort of brief expression of how other think other after the two weeks being together. Out of 30, I got 23. All are positive comments. I like it. At least I know how people think of me or at least I know their brief impressions on me. Despite of the comment of my long hair, yeah., they commented on me as cool, calm, confident 'n smart. Writing this is not narcissistic (I'm too afraid to be called so) lol. The positive thing is at least I can find myself not freaking out others :D I'm so afraid if that happened.:D

These days, my talking with Harla is moving forward. Day by day I feel more happier. However, we have our jobs and it's not merely job. It's more than that, it's self actualization. We are improving our each organizations. That's why we need more conversations to understand each other. But for sure, I'm in:)

I talked to my parents about her and they were happy. Yeah, I am happy as well.
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Last week, I went to Hiliamaeta visiting the training of building the houses with the pressing blocks. It is strong and I believe it's more quake-resistant than others. Geoffrey was just as great as to be and the team was solid, too.

For livelihood, I found great change there. Habit change of the staffs who staying in the field. They are doing pretty good job.
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Thursday, August 16, 2007

new dimension

Getting around in mailinglists, it was just cool. NMCP alumnies were pretty much active. I'm just sort of cooling down before appearing. Well, you know, I need to watch over what's goin on there first. Scanning..!

It's been already three weeks after the NMCP. A week after leaving Jakarta, a week already for starting a new life. A new life in the sense .....well, it's personnal, actually, and I don't know if this is right space for that. But yup, i hope that it's a new start of life, a new start for new dimension of life. Yes, it'll be. I'm so convinced like never before. Keywords; HSO

The guys from anywhere
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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

I met Jaishree yesterday night. She was just like used to be, humble 'n thoughtful. She visited Aceh, Nias and Jogya as evaluator of the disaster response programs of YTBi and its partners. One of our conversations last night was the fact that the flowing of aid in Aceh has reduced the participation of the people. It's NGO and other humanitarian agencies fault who provided the aid regardless the culture and the participation of the people. Yes, it's not a new issue. It's good she got that point.

Another issue we talked was about the fact that people (NGO activists) were very often trapped in the project implementation. Huge energy spent for reports, administrative works and things to fancy donors. This somehow very often make us forgot the initial mission why we were here. Is it only for project implementation "an sich" or something beyond it? Something down deeper. This clicked me. Yes, I realized I've been here now for three years but yes I feel something not fulfilled yet. That's it. The question why am I here? Reflection. And it's not only about me personally but also with all the teams, the staff, the people in LPAM. I realized that we might be good in programs implementation but something down deeper should be recalled again. We need Annual Reflection. I am thinking about it now. We need to remind ourselves again the mission for social transformation, how to build dignity of the people, to "not depend" on the aid, to fight for the self-esteem, to say no for the commercialism, enlightening.
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Tomorrow, I am leaving for Medan to meet Anant and auditors. What I understand is Anant is trying to help the administrative work of LPAM. I won't blame anybody here but yes the fact in this mid August, the auditing was just started. It should have been completed since he required me that. Yup, I think it's my weakness for not asking hard the x treasurer to deal with the auditor. Yup, I have to pay the price for that by going back again to Medan in which I prefer staying here to complete my works.

Oh yeah, Mike and Patrick from London, Anant and Iskandar from Medan visited us on the last Monday, 13. Nothing special for the auditing except that the letter from Andrew in early days when he agreed on our proposal through email instead of issuing 100 papers of agreement. Once Mike and Patrick found that letter it was sort of finding the clue. I had no idea at all about that but what I thought was it was not fair to judge Andrew for the past regardless the situation. In my perspective what Andrew did was the right one to make the relief operation run as expected. Well, no clue at all...

Thursday, August 09, 2007

From Makara With...








The method of the training was okay. I liked it at least it didn't make you feel bored.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Why Management?

That's the question. For shake of what?




Tuesday, August 07, 2007

A TURNING POINT OF LIFE?


A turning point of life? I pray for that. These two weeks really amazing for some reasons. First, I like the systematic way of the module trained and I think that's what I need how to improve LPAM. Starting from the discourse of accountability, transparency, ligitimated and things like that to strategic planning, project planning with various tools, budgeting, building and maintaining network with stakeholders and financial sustainability. Second, and this is the huge thing. I knew that I couldn't keep staying in a place, in blocks, in a building for two weeks with tight schedule but I could made it after all. Yes, I could follow all the sesssions except for one session just because I was just too tired at that time. The 'X' factor if you could say so. And she is here now.