As an intern, my encounter to SOS UK Headquarter

NGO Leaders' Forum's realm not limited in Taiwan but also a BCUA woman retreat from Taiwan to UK for bridging up cooperation and learning the expertise of foundrasing and communication and outreach from SOS, the headquarter of our partner OIC.

Arriving in UK late night on 26 Sept, spending 2 days to explore survival ways including transportation and communication with Taiwan in Oxford, I finally had an encounter with SOS crews on 29 Sept. The office inside of the historical Old Music Hall, located in Cowley Road, shared space on 2nd flood with NGOs like COIN and Echo, is a lovely and comfortable place for me to stay.

There are four members in the office. Helen Buckland who is the SOS UK Director always smiles and has the patience to listen and exchanges ideas with me. Claire is the new editor and journalist of the SOS newspaper JungleVine only for 2 months with abundant experience in NGO field. Bruce is the only male member for 8 years old and follows us everywhere we go. As the fourth member, I have discussed with Helen my tasks hoping to meet mutual needs of SOS and my organization BCUA, also witnessed many interesting coming events and look forward to start my study and research topics about foundrasing and CSR here.

The SOS Office is inside of the historical Old Music Hall and beside it is the George & Delila's Cafe (G & D) which is the best place for me to enjoy free Wifi, handmade ice cream and pizza bagel.






Bruce lies on a personal pad, and behind him is his panda friend.









Helen, Clair and me have lunch together in Cape of Good Hope in Cowley Road.









30 Sept is a sunshine day to take pictures. This beautiful Cathedral is located in the corner of SOS office








This is the East Oxford Community Center broadcasting many social activities like dance or fitness sports for people to join.








Greek, Indian, Chinese, Cambodia, Thailand, Sri Lanka shops even a Lan Kwai Fong (蘭桂坊) here makes Cowley Road more multi ethical and cultural than other area I have been in Oxford. The grocery store with colourful painting wall attracts walking people's eyes.

Short Brief Introduction Sumatra Sustainable Support (SSS-Pundi Sumatra)

Why bother with frogs crossing the roads?

Some have not yet realised that frogs are important to human beings. Frogs eat insects, some of which are serious pests in some regions. Frogs are also part of the ecosystem which means that whatever happens to them will affect other animals and even us in different ways. We are all connected in the web of life.

Based on this understanding, The Society of Wilderness in Hsinchu County initiated to mobilise local community volunteers to rescue frogs crossing the roads in Neiwan river. These frogs started mating for breeding from September to November each year and thus local volunteers make efforts to prevent the frogs being run over by motorists by stopping motorists to slow down their speed and catch some frogs barred by river wall built by local county government. After they catch the frogs, volunteers release them into the river ad allow the frogs to roam freely in river ecosystem and lay their eggs for breeding. This cause has been underway for some years and education programme in local schools to promote the importance of frog protection from extinction have been underway administered by the Society of Wilderness in Hsinchu county. In the future, it was suggested by NGO Leader Forum, sponsored by Research and Development Center for Community Learning (RDCCL) at NCCU, who visited the project site, that frog crossing signs need to be built in road areas used by frogs to cross t the river. More campaign at national level is also encouraged to bring the cause more widely in Taiwan.

Every creature have a reason to live and therein has an important role to sustain the ecosystem. Efforts by Society of Wilderness to save the frogs from further harmful road incident contribute greatly to promote viable ecosystem that is currently affected by global climate change. We deeply hope this effort will inspire all younger generations to be more concerned about our environment and everyone in the community regardless their age and nationality hold the responsibility to practice positive behaviours that benefit the environment and the ecosystems. Lets do it now or we lose our nature!

NCTU Workshop-Services Learning for Youth

“This session would continue in the future and I appreciated the people who help us” Cung-Yu Wu, President of National Chiao Tung University, in opening ceremony of National Chiao Tung University (09/28).

The learning process for youth was established through youth voluntary groups. The volunteers work in the relevant country. In Indonesia, the volunteer groups namely I-DO and E-Mate. I-DO volunteer group was focusing in rain forest and orangutan conservation in Gunung Leuser National Park. Beside, E-Mate volunteer group was focusing on rural education through ICT in Aceh province. The other youth volunteers are NTHU Volunteer group in Ghana. They are focusing in whole-system design and collaboration.

Both of the volunteer groups were promoting ecotourism, open sources, digital devices for conservation and renewable energy, ecology protection education. While, they also held blogger and internet activity, improving learning and teaching, orphan care, fair trade forum and other positives.

“We providing information and knowledge of computer and internet, recording the preparation of local traditional festival, improving the life of local resident and promoting health concept, introducing new business IT model, collaborating with local to find out the knowledge and resources for live” said NTHU Volunteer group.

Regarding Panut Hadisiswoyo (Founding Director OIC), Okta Setiawan (Air Putih Foundation) and Kiearen Ryan (Sacred Hear College-Belize), the volunteer groups were learning a new innovation in digital and conservation learning for local and international communities, bridging and leverage more partnership. Also, they were improving in communication way in rural area, especially for the poor.

This a good model through active collaborative action with partners in each country. “But, how we share each other, how we learn together” Joy Tang, Founding Director of One Village Foundation asked. The other question came from Director of the Service-Learning, NCTU, Chi-Kaung Pai. “What can we do next? Do we keep share the information or what?”

Hsinchu River Tour, September 27 2010

http://wiki.fcu.org.tw/index.php/NLF10:Hsinchu_river_tour

NCHC Internship Report Week 1 September 21st – September 24th 2010

INTERNSHIP WEEKLY TIME AND ACTIVITY REPORT

National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) 
Hsinchu City, Taiwan

Basic Information:

• Name: Mulyadi Pasaribu
• Intern Organization: National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC)
• Advisors: Wei-Ping Jia: CEO of BCUA, Chia-Chen Kuo: Associate Research Scientist of NCHC, Steven Shiau: Associate Research Scientist of NCHC, Panut Hadisiswoyo: Founding Director of OIC
• Supervisors: Ceasar Sun, Jazz Wang and Thomas Tsai from the Free Software Lab, NCHC
• Service Period: September 21st – September 24th 2010

Weekly Report:

Time/Date	Daily Log
	09/21/10	09/22/10	09/23/10	09/24/10
Time In	08.30 AM	Holiday	09.05 AM	08.55 AM
Time Off	05.30 PM	Holiday	05.30 PM	05.30 PM

Activities:

• 09/21: Introduction about NCHC and going around the office to see the facilities, Linux basic learning (installation, user management and file system)
• 09/23: Linux Network and Configuration, Poedit Software, Vi Software, Wikispace website
• 09/24: Self learning

NCHC Office

NCHC Office

Assignment: 09/21: Translate Partclone Software to Bahasa Indonesia


Self Note:

On the 1st day, I arrive at NCHC at 08.35 AM. Actually I've arrive at 08.10 but I decided to wait outside the NCHC office and see the area around NCHC and also see the rush that happen on the street. I'm going to NCHC from homestay by walking and it need more than 50 minutes of time. I leave the homestay before 07.00 and walking through NTHU and NCTU before finally arrive at NCHC. I know the NCHC office and the route for walking from the I-DO Volunteer (NCTU) member at the night before I beginning my internship.

Mr. Steven warmly welcomed me on the 1st day of internship, we are having short discussion and he reveal the free software lab room, then Mr. Thomas take me going around to see the facilities available in NCHC. After lunch Mr. Thomas provide me lesson and knowledge about linux basic. I learn a lot of commands used in Linux and this is one of my personal point of interest during this internship. Now I know how to install a software, add or delete user using the command in Terminal.

On the 2nd day, I learn much commands about Linux Network and Configuration. Mr. Thomas also ask me to extend my knowledge by reading and implementing some information found on the “Linux System Administration” book from the NCHC library. I think this book really useful for me and in the future if I go back to Indonesia, I will try to found and buy the book in Bahasa.

On the 2nd day I also learn how to use a software named Poedit for translating a language used in Partclone software. This is my first assignment from NCHC, to translate the Parclone language that already supported 3 languages, English, Mandarin and French into Bahasa Indonesia. Actually this assignment already given on the first day but I got the files to be translated on the 2nd day. So, after lunch I try to translate the file and at the end of the 2nd day I've finished my translation as the words need to be translated not so much. But to make sure that my translation is work, I plan to recheck and finalized the translation on the next day.

I also learn on how to use Vi for editing a file if we lost our interface. The display I saw when using this software for editing file is not so different with what I found when using the linux terminal.

On the 2nd day I also trying a web service for creating a wiki site. The service can be found on http://www.wikispaces.com/. I didn't try all of the features yet but from the first impression I thought that the dashboard of the wikispaces quite simple easy to navigate and easy to use. I'll try to fill some information on the wiki site each day and will report the progress each week starting from next week report.

Friday, September 24th is my third day doing internship at NCHC and on this date I doing self learning because Mr. Thomas going to Ubuntu Hadware Summit (UHS) Conference. On this 3rd day, I try to repeat the knowledge I got so far and I also rechecked the translation of the Partclone Software in Bahasa Indonesia.

Learning from Disasters : A social movement to a civic society

Natural disasters are inevitable. Is that really true? Probably not all the case is true. What about human factor in natural disaster? There are some disasters that are caused by human factors such as landslides, flooding, droughts, fires and many others. These disasters are mainly driven by the fact that human beings undermine the importance of sustainability principles: lack of landscape management and spatial planning, over settlement issues, over utilisation of natural resources, lack of environmental assessment and lack of actions to restore habitat degradation by local stakeholders.

We learn from disasters and we put so much efforts in the form of national and even international budget to provide shelters for those who were displaced. Maybe we are fancy with this stuff as this lead to a political pressure to endorse government budget for reconstruction activities. However, there appears that we never learn that disasters can easily return and devastate our reconstructed facilities and lives unless there are efforts to prevent further catastrophic consequences by eliminating any potential factors that can reduce the catastrophic impact of natural disasters on human beings and their belongings. Where were we when saw unsustainable practices taking places in our community? We let such things happen and we wait for disasters!

The Typhoon Morakok disaster in Taiwan has called upon all stakeholders in the region to address the disaster accordingly. Efforts to help those in need of help were underway in such a way that was focused on human landscape perspective. To our observation during the Typhoon Morakok Workshop, the anticipated disaster management more stressed on the need to tackle the catastrophic impact on human facilities in the first place (disaster relief) rather than putting it together to improve the ecological structure immediately to prevent further catastrophe from the typhoon (disaster mitigation).

Moreover, we learn that the typhoon morakok seems to be the issue for indigenous people only. Indigenous people are claimed as those who suffer most as they would lose their origins of nature and culture as a result of the disaster. Probably it is not the case as the scope of the workshop appeared to be narrowed to the movement of indigenous people to tackle the problems, mainly facilitated and mobilised by the CMCU. This leads to a critical question: are we on the right track when we deal with this issue by focusing on indigenous perspective? What about the whole society and the environment in the disaster relief management? These questions would lead us to a mindset that a holistic approach in disaster relief and mitigation need to be put forward. In other words, we all share the responsibility to cope with the challenges in disaster management by utilising all available resources in accordance with the social rights and environmental principles for the benefit of the society and the ecology as a whole.

Looking at the forest restoration programme in Gunung Leuser National Park (GLNP) by the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC), Sumatra, Indonesia, we learn that we are attempting to tackle the problems of deforestation by empowering the local people as the steward of the rainforest protection in the region. The deforestation in GLNP mainly caused by ignorance to unsustainable forest exploitation and lack of law enforcement to promote firm protection over the natural resources in GLNP. This restoration programme seems to reflect that we can offer solution only to slow down the natural devastation as a result of uncontrolled natural resource utilisation from the rainforest. Economic development however become the main drive over this utilisation. Conversion of forests to agricultural plantation such as oil palm plantation has been underway to fulfil the increasing demand by global market. Can we stop the demand by global market anyway? This is not easy to answer but this question has brought all workshop participants to come up with some possible ideas in the hope that agricultural plantation in the region should be managed accordingly and thus global customer power can lead to a pressure to promote sustainable agricultural plantation that benefits the environment and social rights movement. Moreover, the restoration programme also give us hopes to make a change in our environment and with this hopes, we will do something to overcome all the challenges and prevent further catastrophe on global habitat.


All in all, the typhoon morakok workshop has given us opportunity to explore all possible solution in disaster management with tangible results. All ideas have led us to look forward to addressing all the challenges in a feasible way and thus build community leadership among us as society members to create necessary conditions to achieve a civic society.

Meinong, 24 September 2010.
Panut Hadisiswoyo

Friendship from Chi-Mei Community University

CMCU workshops- CU movement in Taiwan, Meinong, Kaohsiung County, 21-24 September, 2010

Friendship from ICOS 2010

ICOS 2010: NGO track program, Kaohsiung City, 17-19 September, 2010