From the field in East Sumba. Medical care, clean water, prevention and community health where access remains difficult.
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This page gathers all news and field articles from Fair Future Foundation. Medical missions, clean water projects, malaria prevention, solar electrification, logistics and training in ultra-rural Indonesia. Transparent reports, real stories, measurable impact. Follow our work, step by step, from the field to long-term solutions.
Stories from the field
Original articles from our teams in East Indonesia
The work behind each story
Our teams write these articles from the places where we work. They document medical care, access to water, prevention, education and the practical decisions made with communities. Each story connects an observation from the field with the work needed to respond.
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PMC program evaluation in Lapinu
These women linked to the PMC program devote part of their lives to saving others. These unsung heroines work tirelessly to keep people from the danger of illness and injury. They put their lives on the line to ensure others can live to see another day.
PMC program evaluation in Kabanda
Kabanda is genuinely one of the most isolated I have ever seen. Getting it is difficult, even dangerous, at times. No road leads to this village; only extremely steep or steep stony paths allow us to go there. It took us over six hours to get there, including four hours of absolute terrain with the Truck of Life, a 4×4 medical truck specially…
Check blood pressure in rural areas
Here in the ultra-rural and poor areas where Fair Future Foundation and Kawan Baik Indonesia work, populations tend to have a higher prevalence of high blood pressure than in urban and wealthier areas. This is mainly due to poor diet, excessive tobacco consumption, and poor hydration.
Check Blood Pressure as part of the PMC program
This new "Picture of the Day" shows you Mama Katerina, from the village of Lapinu, who is learning to take blood pressure with Dr Aldo. She knows what a systole is or a diastole is and from when and under what conditions there is hyper or hypotension. She will also learn to give appropriate medical treatment (Captopril) for high blood pressure.
As part of the Primary Medical Care program, Katerina and eight other "Kawan Sehat" health workers participate in this unique pilot experience. These women teachers can measure a patient's blood pressure and give appropriate medical treatment in case of hypertension.
It is a social and medical revolution, in our opinion. The fight and prevention of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases are essential here in the ultra-rural regions of eastern Indonesia. To be active and efficient, our medical teams provide knowledge and equipment (manual blood pressure measuring device, stethoscope) in each pilot village. They are five out of the thirty-five in which the PMC project is implemented.
This, for example, has led us to talk about active and passive smoking. To make it clear, tobacco is dangerous for your health, and it is also the cause of high blood pressure and, consequently, strokes, heart attacks, respiratory problems and a host of other related diseases at the cigarette shop.
PMC program evaluation in Mbatapuhu
Non-professionals who give medical care and medicine to people, sick children, and injured. They do so through a unique and innovative medical care program. Because here, there are no doctors, no health centre, or else too far away. No one has a vehicle, and the roads that lead to these villages are often impassable.
Giving life to the village of Laindatang
The current priority in this village is to give them clean, safe water and sanitation. Here, families must walk for miles, sometimes more than 10 hours, to bring a few litres of clean water home. People here have less than 2 litres per day and a person to drink, eat, go to the toilets, and wash. So you have to make sacrifices.
PMC – Teachers receive their training certificate
This new "Picture of the Day" shows three real heroes and three incredible women, Merlin, Siyane and Sarlota. In the ultra-rural and isolated village of Kabanda, the three participants and teachers in the primary medical care program received their first work and training certificate.
This follows the teaching they received from the foundation's teams in December 2022. Complete medical training based on fifteen modules, which explain and demonstrate how to care for a sick or injured patient (adult or child ). This is in villages where no health centre, doctor, or health professional is present, available or accessible, and most of the time, like here in this village, where no road leads.
You must understand the situation, friends: These women come from Asia's most rural regions and perhaps even the world. Most have not been to school or received basic compulsory training. They were trained for three months in teaching in the ultra-rural areas by a partner association called Charis Sumba.
So you have to imagine their pride to have succeeded in becoming one of these health workers, the person in the village responsible for providing first aid in an emergency, the possibility of illness in the event of an injury, an adult or a child. So when they received this certificate, tears flowed. Their tears flowed ours too, and it was a moment of incredible strength, but above all, very emotional.
In principle, here, and related to local culture and traditions, a woman takes care of household chores, fetching water, cooking for the children, and caring for the family. These three female superheroes are not only teachers within the framework of Charis Sumba, but they are also now – and for more than four months – the health workers of the PMC program. They are the ones who can save a life in the absence of a medical centre, medical care or a doctor in the village. This is not anything in terms of enhancing the role of women in ultra-rural villages; this is immense and important progress.
Evaluation of 8 Kawan Sehat agents, in Mbinudita
In the village where it all started for us: The #rebuildmbinudita program is the construction of a school, and the construction of a drinking water network for more than 2700 people, 60% of whom are children under 12 years old . It is really the (re)construction of an entire village or learning to live healthier, healthier all together, within…
PMC program pre-assessment in Mbinudita
Fair Future teams examine and investigate more than two hundred cases of various illnesses or injuries treated under the primary medical care program by health workers. We also take stock of what will happen next week to accurately assess the supply of new equipment, drugs and medical devices.
What does a kitchen look like without food or water
This new "Picture of the Day" shows you what the kitchen of an East Sumba family is like. A kitchen like there are tens of thousands here. One of the elements we always see is the presence of five-litre jerry cans. They are the ones that serve as a container for the water that the girls and women have to fetch from afar. We also notice the absence of food, including no rice, only corn. Rice is expensive, and nobody can buy it here in Laindatang, East Sumba: No electricity, running water, and sink.
Just a hearth that will be used once a day only to prepare corn porridge mixed with vegetables and roots that the women have been looking for in the forest. Salt and red peppers. That will be all for the day and the whole family, including dogs and cats.
Families here live without clean or potable water, yet access to potable water is crucial for survival and maintaining good health. Without clean water, families in the areas where Fair Future and Kawan Baik work are forced to drink contaminated water, which leads to waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever and dysentery.
This has an immense impact on daily life and livelihoods. Women and children must walk long distances to fetch water, which takes up much time and interferes with other activities such as work or education.
What do the sanitary facilities we build look like?
This new "Picture of the Day" shows you an example of construction that we carry out in the poorest villages of Indonesia and Asia. Here the families before did not have access to clean water and toilets. Fair Future and Kawan Baik Foundations have been changing this for years, and noticeable changes are being seen.
Access to drinking water and toilets is a fundamental human right. Still, unfortunately, in the regions where we are, nearly 90% of families in ultra-rural areas do not have access to these necessities. Here are some steps that can be taken to provide access to clean water and toilets in the regions that do not have access:
The first step is to identify the areas most needing these facilities. Fair Future and Kawan Baik proceed through research, surveys, and working with our local partners and authorities. Once regions that do not have access to clean water and toilets have been identified, we develop plans to provide these services. This takes into account the specific needs of each community. To do this, we have several ways to provide access to clean water, such as drilling deep wells, installing water filtration systems and collecting rainwater. The method used will depend on the specific needs of the community.
Access to toilets is also essential to reduce the rate of infectious diseases such as Cholera, Dengue, hepatitis A, and Malaria. In this photo, two sanitary facilities have been built using the Ferro-Cement method, with a tank for collecting dirty water and clean water for watering.
Fair Future also considers it essential to educate the community on the importance of hygiene and sanitation practices to prevent the spread of disease. We do this through the #waterconnections and #kawansehat and #primarymedicalcare programs.
One of our missions is also to monitor and maintain these new facilities. This requires the training of local community members who will carry out essential maintenance and repairs.
Inventing toys when you don’t have any
This "Picture of the Day" shows two children from Tanah Mbanas, Sumba Tengah, who have created a kitchen with waste from the plastic they found around their houses made of earth and bamboo. They are playing cooking. Here, families do not have access to water and even less to clean water.
Here in Sumba, in these ultra-rural villages, it is not uncommon for children of all ages to invent toys and games from natural materials or objects from waste or old. In these areas, children rely on their creativity and ingenuity to find new forms of play and have fun.
For example, children can make their toys from natural materials such as sticks, pebbles and leaves. They can use these materials to create games like building forts or playing "tag" with modified rules. Likewise, old items like cans, tires, or ropes can be repurposed to create new toys, like a toy truck, makeshift soccer ball, or swing.
These types of imaginative play experiences are very beneficial for the development of children. They encourage creativity, problem-solving and social interaction as children work together to develop new ideas and adapt the rules of their games. Additionally, playing in nature can provide opportunities for physical activity and exploration, positively affecting physical and mental health.
