A friendly mosquito sprayer talks to a child.

Since October 2007 Yayasan Usaha Mulia (YUM) has been implementing a Malaria control programme in the subdistrict of Bukit Batu in Central Kalimantan. The six villages (one of them Tangkiling) that have been targeted for this programme, are situated along or close to the Central Kalimantan Highway, also called Jalan Tjilik Riwut, after the famous Dayak freedom fighter against the Dutch.

In Bukit Batu Malaria is endemic, which means that people are at constant risk of catching the disease. Fortunately it is the mild form (Plasmodium Vivax) that prevails. Although the effects of repeated attacks of P. Vivax through childhood and adult life are rarely directly lethal,  they can have major deleterious effects on personal well-being, growth, and development, and on the economic performance at the individual, family, community and national levels. A study done before the start of the Malaria programme showed that Malaria was seen as problem No. 1 by the inhabitants of Bukit Batu.

With this situation in mind, SD-Germany which has for many years coöperated with YUM on various projects in Indonesia, applied to the Federal German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for funding a programme that would reduce morbidity and mortality of Malaria by 50% and educate the population to understand the disease better and to take their own precautions. This was in 2005.

In 2007 the programme was finally accepted and funding granted by BMZ. The total cost amounted at the time to 250.000 Euro. 75% to be covered by the BMZ grant and 25% to be raised by SD-Germany and YUM.

The Malaria control programme consists of several parts:

1. Diagnosis and treatment (with either traditional medicine or an ACT-combination therapy which combines Artemisia Annua and traditional medicine)
2. Precautionary measures like the use of impregnated bed-nets, inside residual spraying and vector control.
3. Provision of clean drinking water in Banturung and at two locations in Tangkiling.
4. Building awareness of the dangers of defecation in fields and rivers and encouraging the building of individual pit latrines.

All of these programmes have been running well and have had good results that have been verified in an external evaluation in March 2009—at that time the number of malaria cases had already been lowered almost to zero. SD Germany and YUM see this as a result of regular precautionary measures and increased awareness of and knowledge about the disease on the part of the project participants.

SDG and YUM are especially happy that it has been possible, in close cooperation with BMZ, to incorporate the very newest perceptions of what is good practice in development cooperation. To name the most significant ones:

Latrines: A programme has been developed in Bangladesh, called Community Led Total Sanitation, a sensibilisation concept which has been successfully applied in many countries. It makes people understand in phases the consequences of open defecation for their own health and the environment and to raise the wish in them to have their own latrines and to be willing to build these latrines and to pay for the materials without any further NGO-assistance. Billions of Dollars have been wasted in the past for the construction of latrines that people did not use afterwards because they had not been sensitized properly beforehand. In Bukit Batu we are looking forward to celebrating the first ODF Village later this year (ODF: Open Defecation-free) with a big splash.

A water tower provides clean water as part of Malaria prevention.

Clean Water: In the villages where YUM is providing clean drinking water, the first step is to reach an agreement with the target population: People have to agree that they are willing to pay for the water they use and to contribute towards administration. Administration, maintenance and repair as well as the collection of water money is done by a community led management group. This group is working on a voluntary basis and is selected by the community. The money they collect from end-users is held in a bank and serves to maintain and repair the installation that consists of a well deep enough to provide water also in the dry season and of a tower from which the pipes go to each of the households that have signed up. Pipes end in a water meter that records the individual use of water.

We have recently successfully applied to BMZ to prolong the project which was to end on December 31st this year, until end of June 2011 and to increase the project volume to 310.000 Euros. This was necessary because of increased costs in several areas - personnel costs, equipment, latrine-sensibilisation etc. The sensibilisation could not take place in 2009 due to the fires from August to October and the ensuing heavy rains. It has now been done at the end of June 2010, so we hope that everyone is busy at building latrines and preparing for Habaring Hurung to become the first O D F in Central Kalimantan. Cheers to that.

Renee Zimmer
August 10, 2010