” I want to learn how to farm, so I can get good yield, then I can sell it to get money, and I can go back to school”, that was coming out from a 16 years old boy in front of us, as we screened some candidates to be tested to receive scholarship in organic farming training.

Jefri was out of school at the age of fifteen. He left school because he failed to pass the next grade. As he felt so ashamed to his friends, his family was also unsupported to motivate him back to school. Jefri has a dream to become a soldier.

Nabaheng is the village where Jefri spend his days. He is no longer lives with his parents, and stay with his widowed aunt. Sometimes he helped to dig sand under the sea and carried it up to the village which in the process of making dirt road to water sources. He made some small money that way.

A small village consists of 30 families, all of the houses in Nabaheng don’t have proper sanitation as water don’t run to homes that are located up in the hill. The people went down to water sources to take bath and took water for cooking. They didn’t really build cover or separator on the water sources and the adult take bath with clothes on. Once, they had a pumping machine that distribute water to communal washrooms, but it’s broken because electricity went up and down unexpectedly.

We went along with Jefri’s spiritual leader to prepare him with the test for the scholarship. We really hope that this good opportunity will be able to bring him back to school again.