Yayasan Penghibur is a Christian foundation that was founded in 1980. The main centre of the Foundation is located in Kelet in the district of Jepara in the province of Central Java. Its original aim was to help people who have leprosy and to give correct information about this sickness.
Now Yayasan Penghibur sponsors activities in the fields of social work, health care and ecology in the villages in Central Java.
OUR WORK
I. SOCIAL WORK
Children’s Home
The Children’s Home was founded in 1984 for children who had leprosy or whose parents had the sickness. Nowadays the state provides better care for leprosy patients and so the original reason for the children home no longer exists. But Yayasan Penghibur has already been a home for 180 children, who have come because of extreme poverty, other sicknesses or violence. They stay at the home until finishing school. Mentally handicapped youth continue to stay at the home.
Health Care
Yayasan Penghibur takes part in the child and mother welfare clinics of the local hospital in the villages. YP helps pregnant women and their babies by giving them vitamins, extra food, fresh milk and immunization from tropical diseases. We also give them medical guidance on how to achieve good physical condition.
In our own small clinic we have developed a diabetic treatment for poor people. We finance it with cattle. We buy a beef heifer or bull and give it to a poor family, which raises it. When we then sell the bull or heifer, the family gets half of the profit and half comes to clinic. We then buy a new beef animal and use the rest for the project. The more beef cattle we can buy, the more people we can help. One beef animal costs about 300-500 €.
We are developing a dental clinic especially for pupils in our village schools. We plan to finance this with beef cattle, too.
Sanitation
Working together with Emmaus Helsinki-Finland, Yayasan Penghibur has helped poor families in the villages. For example, we have had 25 toilets and bathrooms built for them. We have also dug wells. This sanitation project helps about 500-600 people.
Training
Yayasan Penghibur has provided several classes about sewing, cooking and gardening for women. There have been classes in motor repair for men.
II. HANDICRAFTS
Our area (Jepara) is well known for its furniture and woodcraft production. Our organization has a carpentry workshop to produce furniture, ornaments and souvenirs. We use wood grown by us or families in our neighborhood. We never buy wood from rain forests. Our products can be bought at our place in Kelet. We also have exported it abroad and this remains a possibility.
III. RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Dairy
We have cows that give milk, not only for our own children, but also by the aid of Emmaus International for children who suffer from malnutrition in our local area. We sell milk to the local market in order to raise funds for our organization. We also have meat cattle to raise funds for our clinic.
Reforesting
Yayasan Penghibur owns a piece of land, about 3,5 ha in Guwo Mountain. This area was a deforested hill, when we bought it. We have planted trees there: mahogany, teak, sengonlaut, kapok, coffee, cashew nut and many fruit trees.
This project has been an example for people in the area and now many of them plant trees on their land. At first we planted donated plants. Now we also sell our plants elsewhere. In the dry season a lot of people in the deforested area have suffered from a shortage of water, but we don't have that problem any more on our land because of reforestation.
Youth Hostel
We hosted a youth work camp of Emmaus International in March 2007. The camp planted ca 20000 trees for our neighbors. The buildings where the youth lived is now used as a youth hostel.
