sharing happiness, dreams, hopes and opportunities
PILAR in Tassese Village (January - June 2013)
Total fund collected= € 850, -
PILAR is a community for social movement in education. It has been working in Tassese Village since 2009. The word PILAR consists of two words which are PIntu (door) and beLAjaR (study). PILAR hopes that it can be a gateway for anyone who wants to learn and preserve Indonesians cultures, especially its local cultures.
Tassese Village is isolated village in South Sulawesi Province - Indonesia. The area of Tassese Village is 9,7 km2 with 267 ha land use.Besides, it has mountains, forest, hills, waterfalls and river. The population is 1.767 people with 481 families. More than 99% of residents are farmers. The rest is civil servants.
Because of its location, this village has been abandoned from development and has been suffering from poverty for decades. The farmers make very little profit from the land. Children barely have access to education.
PILAR grows with spirit to help, support and encourage the Villagers of Tassese, especially the young generation to know, understand, be proud, and develop their own village. The main objectives are described in three points as follows:
1. Encourage the villagers to recognize their own potentials, talents, and local wisdom and then to implement it in their daily lives.
2. Provide alternative education through simulations, local games, songs, and agricultural training.
3. Encourage the villagers to be more creative, innovative, and critical in life.
PILAR has focused its movement by forming a School of Local Culture since 2012. In 2013, PILAR prioritizes three main activities to implement. They are:
1. Quantitative research on households.
The aim of this research is to measure household income and asset.
2. Participatory Mapping
Together with the villagers, PILAR will make a GIS (Geographical Information System) Map of Tassese Village. The map will display all historical and geographical information about the village. Initially, a FGD (Focus Group Discussion) has been done among the villagers. They drew roughly a map of their village and denoted the location of land use, population and administrative boundaries. The aim of this activity is to help the villagers to know better the condition of their village, predict the future problems caused by nature, avoid the predicted problems, nurture the environment and so forth.
3. School of Local Culture (Indonesian Class)
There are 3 highlighted points in this school which are agricultural knowledge, farming culture, alternative education and local creativity. In each learning opportunities in this school, there will always be knowledge transfer and reciprocal process from PILAR to the villagers and the other way around.
PILAR has received warm welcome from the community. Some of the Tassese Villagers has entrusted a house to be used as a basecamp for PILAR's volunteers.It is called BaCa (Balla’ Carakde’ )
Baca, the basecamp of PILAR. Photo was taken from the right side of the house.