What We Learn by Being There in Ultra Rural Indonesia: Building Health and Water Systems
Training local health agents and building water access saves lives every day
At the heart of our work: sharing knowledge. FairFuture’s educators and health teams lead impactful sessions in schools, teaching children how to live healthier, safer lives.
Presence is the first treatment. We stay, we learn, and care becomes possible.
In remote East Indonesia, medicine starts long before issuing prescriptions. Presence teaches discipline: wash wounds with clean water and soap, debride gently, cover, and monitor. Use antibiotics only when necessary. Proper training of local health workers helps prevent infections, safely reduce fevers, and identify danger signs early, hours before a distant clinic can.
This embodies Kawan Sehat, our Primary Medical Care program. During an intensive week, we teach men and women to triage and recognise dehydration, rapid breathing, persistent fever, malnutrition, and high-risk pregnancies. They provide oral rehydration, safe pain relief, wound care, and infection prevention, and refer immediately when red flags appear. For malaria, still highly prevalent in this region, we focus on prevention, education, and swift action: using long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, controlling standing water, early testing when available, and prompt treatment or referral. The same thorough approach applies to dengue, tuberculosis, polio, and leprosy: prevent, detect early, treat appropriately, and protect households.
Being there also involves building what health needs to survive. On a hillside above a village, we, along with the community, are constructing a 115 m³ clan water reservoir and a network of hand-built ferro-cement tanks, each with a capacity of 5,300 litres – no electrical grid or pumps – just skill, stone, sand, steel, and many hands. When water is nearby, mothers save hours fetching water, children miss fewer classes, wounds are cleaned, and diarrheal diseases decrease. Every day, we learn that water is fundamental to primary care.
Logistics is also part of care. Our Truck of Life and the new Truck n’ Load traverse mud and rock to restock bandages, basic medicines, oral rehydration salts, and nets for health agents. With Rotary and SolarBuddy, we deliver thousands of solar lights to schools and homes without electricity—providing steady light for studying, safe cooking, and nighttime care.
The results are tangible. Kawan Sehat health agents now treat between 700 and 1,000 patients monthly in these ultra-rural hamlets. The ferro-cement tanks already serve hundreds daily. Each week, a child reads at night, a wound heals cleanly, or a fever subsides, thanks to the neighbour’s training, supplies, and trust.
We conduct this work the Swiss way: precisely, transparently, and relentlessly. For sixteen years, over 93% of every franc has reached the field. We do not pay salaries from donations, keep administration minimal, and publish everything, successes, mistakes, and lessons learned from staying present.
If you can help today, you will literally turn fuel, gauze, soap, tests, and cement into care. Your support sustains health agents, completes community reservoirs, and keeps our trucks moving into places no one else reaches. If you cannot give, please share this story. Either way, stand with us as we keep showing up, because that is where medicine begins.
Today, the 4th of September 2025 – Alex Wettstein
In Short – Presence Becomes Lasting Care
Rooted in the community, we transform logistics into acts of kindness. Our trucks ply muddy roads to deliver medicines and oral rehydration solutions; local volunteers install ferrocement tanks to ensure access to water; SolarBuddy lamps allow children to study and contribute to the safety of nighttime care. Thanks to trained neighbours using these simple tools, small worries don’t escalate into emergencies. This approach is more than just a list of projects; it’s a way of being present that reduces infections, keeps children in school, and strengthens villages, every day.
What We Learn by Being There
List of Related Organisations with Hyperlinks
- Rotary International: A global network transforming volunteer efforts and micro-grants into access to clean water, healthcare, and education in underserved areas.
- Malaria Partners International: A Rotary-aligned nonprofit mobilising clubs and communities to prevent, detect, and treat malaria using proven, scalable methods.
- RBM Partnership to End Malaria: The world’s leading malaria coalition coordinating policy, funding, and country initiatives to reduce cases and deaths.
- Malaria Consortium: An evidence-based organisation implementing seasonal chemoprevention, diagnostics, mosquito nets, and community case management across Africa and Asia.
- PATH: A global health innovator converting research into practical tools—diagnostics, supply chains, and training—for primary healthcare in resource-limited settings.
- Doctors Without Borders (MSF): Independent medical teams providing emergency care and response during outbreaks in remote and difficult-to-access locations worldwide.
- WaterAid: Experts in clean water, sanitation, and hygiene aiming to decrease infections and ensure children can attend school.
- SolarBuddy: Durable solar-powered lights for homes and classrooms without electricity, enhancing safety, study time, and night-time care.
