Sanitation in Alor – spreading the message, tracking its progress

By Sarah Grainger

7-year-old Novianti with her mother Amelia above the beach near their house

© UNICEF Indonesia/2014/Sarah Grainger

FUNGAFENG, NTT province, Indonesia, April 2014 - Novianti Atafan, 7, was one of the last children in her village to get a latrine at home. She lives in the seaside village of Fungafeng on Alor island in Nusa Tenggara Timur province (NTT). The family has a traditional lopo house made of bamboo and wood with a steep, thatched roof where the family sleeps.

Novianti and her mother, father, grandfather and 5 older siblings used to get up each morning and scramble down the slope behind the wooden structure to the beach below to defecate.

All that changed when a sanitarian – a local health worker who specialises in sanitation and hygiene – visited the village.

Youth policy in West Papua – listening to a new generation

Written by Sarah Grainger 

Melan, 24, and her mother Elvi, a biology teacher in Manokwari, West Papua

© UNICEF Indonesia/2014/Andy Brown

MANOKWARI, West Papua province, Indonesia, April 2014 - When Melan started college a few years ago, she got a shock.

Melan’s family had always talked openly about issues like safe sex and HIV/AIDS prevention. So the 24 year-old from Manokwari in West Papua province felt prepared for greater independence from her parents, setting off for college each day on her motorbike. But she soon realised that not all of her friends had had the same support.

Remote schools: Inspiring Papua’s children to go the extra mile for education

By Sarah Grainger

Lima, 7, makes a calculation at school in rural Wamena district, Papua.
© UNICEF Indonesia/2014/Andy Brown

Maima Village, Papua province, Indonesia, April 2014 - There’s a chill in the air and the sun is barely up when 8-year-old Tolaka and her sister Lima, 7, leave home for school at 6am. It takes them an hour to walk to class from the thatched hut they share with their mother, close to the banks of the River Baliem, in Papua’s Kurima sub district.

The route takes them over flooded grassland and along woodland tracks sticky with mud to SD Advent Maima primary school.

“I’m used to walking so I don’t get tired at all,” says Tolaka. “I’m happy to come to school. I have a lot of friends here and we like playing and skipping together.”