Crowdfunding for Latitudes Media Lab

Indonesian Down syndrome Society

By: Gerard Nass

ISDI (Ikatan Sindroma Down Indonesia or Indonesian Down syndrome Society) is a  non-profit support group of parents, medical professions, special-needs experts, teachers, and all of those who have deep concern. The  parents are very concerned of the future of children with Down syndrome in Indonesia especially when little is done to support them by the government or other non-profit organizations. They so look forward towards a better future by sharing their  experiences and supporting each other in their monthly gatherings.  ISDI wants to become an informative centre for families and anyone interested or related to Down syndrome.

The Java Village Foundation

The Java Village Foundation supports women and children in desa Cisarua, Indonesia, helping them to break the circle of poverty and to build a brighter future for their community. We are a small scale foundation and base our help on the priorities of the people of Cisarua. An important condition for our help is that it stimulates independence and cooperation. Once a month our field worker in Indonesia visits all the projects. We work together with local experts and organisations/companies. Because we work only with volunteers, our help benefits the people directly. This is our focus:

· Youth and education;

· Micro-credits for women;

· Health and environment.

The Elephant Valley Project in Cambodia

Elephant Livelihood Initiative Environment (ELIE) is a registered local non-government organization based in Mondulkiri, Cambodia. ELIE’s aim is to improve the health and welfare of the captive elephants in Mondulkiri Province, to work with the local people and the problems that face both people and elephant. The Elephant Valley Project (EVP) is an ecotourism project of ELIE that invites visitors to come and experience these wonderful creatures living in their natural habitat, while providing an alternative approach to elephant care, rehabilitation and conservation and providing employment for the local people.

Sukacita: Information centre in Bali for children with an intellectual disability

By: Yvette Benningshof

‘Sukacita’ in Bali provides information about children with an intellectual disability for special schools, teachers and parents. The founders of Sukacita have their own distinct vision on development work: ‘We share our knowledge and help people to develop. We don’t build schools or give money.’

‘In Bali the circumstances for children with an intellectual disability, like the ‘Down syndrome’, are not too favorable. There is a lot of misunderstanding and that’s why we got the idea to start an information centre’, Yolanda Onderwater of Sukacita explains.

Sukacita, originally a Dutch organization, was founded one year ago by Yolanda Onderwater, Marieke Nijland and Mila van der Meer. Sukacita collaborateswith the well-known Suryani Institute for Mental Health, led by Balinese professor Luh Ketut Suryani. This institute has several special programs to help people with a psychological disorder. ‘Ibu Suryani and I are both healers and mental coaches. We met in Bali and we immediately ‘clicked’, says Onderwater.

The Tileng Foundation

The Tileng Foundation’s mission is to improve living conditions in the villages Imogiri, Baturraden and, of course, Tileng on the island of Java in Indonesia. It achieves this by financing and supporting locally initiated projects.

The Tileng Foundation has been actively supporting projects in Indonesia since 2000. Through these projects, houses and schools have been built, scholarships provided and a prestigious cattle project has been set up.

The Meraih Bintang Foundation

In the West, going to school is one of the most natural things in a child's life, but in Indonesia this is not the case. Children are kept home for many reasons but mostly because their parent(s) or caretakers simply cannot pay for the necessary school uniforms, other school costs/materials and send the children to work so they can help out their family financially. The aim of Meraih Bintang is to take away all the reasons there are to stop a child from going to school. We want to offer children continuity in basic schooling from kindergarten to primary to higher secondary education.

XSProject: Recycling Plastic, Supporting People

By: Ario Triwibowo

XSProject is a non-profit organization that uses its surplus revenues to achieve its goals rather than to distribute them as profit or dividends. Their first objective is conserving the environment. By reusing waste and selling it as products, they are able to reduce to amount of waste piling up in Jakarta. A certain percentage of profit earned is used for a scholarship given to the children of the associated trash pickers, and another percentage is for purchasing materials, tools and labor.

From the Chalkboard to the Blackboard: Project Buckhunger Feeds Street Kids in Cambodia

By: Gabi Yetter

Not long ago, Johnny Phillips spent his days cooking lobster risotto and filet mignon for well-heeled patrons of his upscale restaurants.

Today, Johnny has a different kind of customer – tiny, barefoot children from the streets of Phnom Penh who come to his location for a plate of food to keep them from hunting in the garbage.

At 11am every day the gates to Buckhunger swing open and a steady stream of small patrons filter in, wash their hands and take a seat at a shiny metal table on a blue plastic chair. A group of Cambodian twenty-somethings serve their meals, sweep the floors and clear away their dishes – using the skills they learned from this former restaurateur.

“I train them so they can work in a restaurant after being here,” said Johnny. “The customers at Buckhunger may be little children, but they are waited upon as though they are regular patrons.”

HIV Traps Asian Households in Vicious Circle of Joblessness, Debt

School enrollment, nutrition also suffer, new study says

Bangkok, 1 December 2011—Households in Asia that include people living with HIV exhaust their savings and liquidate assets at a disproportionately high rate, often plunging into “irreversible poverty,” according to a new UN Development Programme (UNDP) study, released today.

Catastrophic health care costs, stigma, unemployment, and bad credit also mean these households—which start out with fewer assets—consume less food of lower quality and keep fewer children in school, the report said.