RoteIsland.Org

Acting locally to create positive change that can be replicated in other areas

Developing a community road map of projects, to overcome the environmental and social issues that our community is facing with fast paced expansion and development.
By bringing likeminded community members together to achieve goals for preserving and maintaining the beauty of Rote we aim to improve the quality of living for all.
Prioritise Rotes environment, and help create industry that prioritises nature.
Provide financial opportunities for local Rotense to work.
Look at creating village level initiatives that can be replicated around Indonesia.

Why We Are Doing This

We aim to implement environmental and social initiatives that will help ensure the maintenance of this beautiful island of Rote.

The village communities to the South of Rote island, in the Dela region, are home to many expatriates who are working together with local Rotenese and Indonesians to find sustainable solutions for their communities' issues. The area is becoming more popular and initiatives must be put in place in order to combat the accelerated issues that will come with more tourism. A diverse mix of local and expatriate community members will allow for different programs and initiatives to be worked on simultaneously. We aim to create positive change to our community using replicable solutions that can be used in other parts of the world.

With the large group that makes up Rotes Dela communities, there are many skill sets and and we are empowered to use the expertise of these members to trail these solutions. Another advantage for these projects is the ability for members to call on aid from their friends and clients in order to fund these projects. The goal is to make the projects sustainable, but crowd fund the initial investments.

We aim to tackle a number of issues, from Waste disposal, to clean water, to seed banking and reforestation and sound environmental practices, health and educational processes, to sustainable power and electrical issues. This group of individuals is road mapping solutions to develop working solutions, so that these solutions can create immediate change which can be blueprinted for other communities. We aim to push our initiatives to fund other projects in other areas, and we hope that we can create a wave of change in both peoples mindsets, as well as how daily living practices can be adjusted to solve issues.

Rote Island.Org group aim to be an example for other communities on how to deal with issues. By providing case studies and solutions, the group is aiming to work with outside organisations, governments and other communities and companies to improve quality of life and environmental issues that face the world today.

Who We Are

Rote Island is unique in that it has a large expatriate population with many members having lived in the area for many years. These expatriates come from many countries and hold many skills in many fields allowing them to be pivotal to the many different aspects of the projects that we are looking to create.
The local Rotenses have a very strong sense of community and the ability to work together to create positive change. By allowing the community to work together to solve these issues, we are empowering avenues of positive change.

As Rote is starting to attract the attention of many outside visitors, who will inadvertently lead to negative environmental impacts, we need to establish the foundations in these projects so that we can scale them as the populations pressures grow. With more people comes more problems, without having the basic solutions in place now, we can risk becoming another “Bali”. We will not let Rote suffer due to tourism and mass mobilsation of people.

Our Chapters

Waste Processing

Broken up into 4 main categories of waste, the waste processing project looks to find easy solutions that are available to develop programs that are specific to each type of waste. Using examples of already established solutions we will replicate these and adapt them to the remote island conditions that we face.

The first step is to create the ability to sort waste, so that it can be disposed of properly. This in itself will require a reprogramming and educational process so that the community help with integrating our waste management systems. Which is broken down into 4 main waste types:

Health

Basic standards of health programs are very low in Rote, with a very high maternal and mortality rates. With the establishment of a proper birthing clinic we aim to improve the levels and standard of medical care in Rote.

Bo’a Birthing Clinic

Water

One of the scarsiest resources on Rote is lack of water, we aim to help combat the large water increase that comes with tourism using a number of technologies in particular desalinisation and the use of waste water gardens so that grey water can be used in gardens. As part of the waste processing we hope to improve the soil quality in Rote so that the water table has more catchments.

Power

Using a variety of technologies we aim to create almost sustainable solutions to the power issues that Rote faces. Much of these solutions require PLN to embrace our solutions, but as a small community with vast renewable energy resources, we will lobby to implement clean energy solutions with improvements to the power grids that are currently available around Indonesia.

PLN Bidirectional meters
Coconut copra processing

Nature

Forming educational programs about the importance of preserving the environment and implementing systems that allow for the establishment of initiatives that will allow for tourism to interact with and give value to nature programs. From jungle nature walks to enforcing the stopping of shooting of birds, and bombing of reefs as a fish technique, to the preservation of some of Rotes animal like like the indigenous Rotense long neck turtle we aim to empower locals to showcase the natural beauty of the islands.

Seed Banking and Reforestation

Giving access to locals to allow them to grow plants and trees that can be used for food production and for improving the environment will allow for more diversity in this arid region.

Structure

Organizational Structure

There are many ways to structure this initiative. However, my family has a Yayasan Maunusia untuk Masyarakat (People for the Community). Managing all administration from this office could be an effective approach, with each chapter receiving funds through direct contributions or the board of directors within the Rote Island group.

Each chapter will be empowered to run independently with support from the main Yayasan. It is also possible for each chapter to have its own bank account to ensure financial transparency and self-sustainability.

Financial Goals

Our goal is to allocate 90% of all donations and income toward solving key issues, while 10% is reserved for staff wages. This ensures that every contribution directly benefits the community projects.

Community Involvement

The villages that make up the Dela regions will be given the first opportunity to host community areas needed for these projects. Each village will be encouraged to specialize in areas that align with their expertise, allowing for a collaborative effort to maximize impact.

In return, the villages will provide land for these initiatives, while the foundation contributes by developing infrastructure and creating local job opportunities.