N.Z.-run Indonesian aid project needs funds

Press, 20 June 1984, Page 42

N.Z.-run Indonesian aid project needs funds

NZPA staff correspondent Hong Kong

Turasmi, an Indonesian girl, aged nine, whose leg was amputated because of cancer, is one of more than 150 crippled children helped through an aid project initiated by a New Zealander, Mr Colin McLennan.

Rehabilim, a project administered by a New Zealand trust set up in 1981 to develop the pioneering work Mr McLennan began largely at his own expense in the late 19705, urgently needs more money to continue its expanded role next year. Mr McLennan told the Press Association in a telephone interview from Jakarta that he had become aware of the needs of Indonesia’s millions of handicapped children while working for the World Scout Organisation between 1974 and 1977.

He was already interested in the welfare of crippled children from his previous work for scouts and for the Red Cross in New Zealand.

Mr McLennan, of Raumati Beach, found that many crippled children lived on the streets of Jakarta. After befriending an amputee, aged 12, who survived by working as a

shoeshine girl, Mr McLennan began to seek out and help other disabled children and young adults. At his own expense and with the assistance of friends he was able to contribute to the cost of medical care, education, and other rehabilitation services for about 50 physically handicapped children since 1975.

“There is little in the way of free medical service in Indonesia and a large number of people who are extremely poor,” said Mr McLennan.

The Indonesian Department of Social Affairs has estimated that there are about 3.5 million handicapped people in the country. The majority of Indonesia’s 150 million people live on the island of Java. Mr McLennan maintained his contacts with Indonesia after his return to New Zealand in 1977 and developed a close working relationship with the existing rehabilitation services.

He decided five years ago to devote himself full-time to helping the crippled children and he helped establish Rehabilim (Trust for the Rehabilitation of Physically Handicapped Children in Indonesia).

The New Zealand-based trust is responsible for raising and administering finance required for the project.

The New Zealand Methodist and Presbyterian Joint Board for Mission meets Mr McLennan’s salary for three years, which began in 1982. Rehabilim, after setting a target of $50,000 for the first three years of the project had only been able to raise $34,500 by the time Mr McLennan left for Indonesia in November, 1982.

With a steady increase in cases referred to Rehabilim, the budget had became inadequate by the end of last year when a Dutch charity, Interchurch Co-ordination Committee, made a one year grant of about $38,000 which enabled the project to keep going through 1984. Rehabilim had worked with around 150 cases, including the 50 Mr McLennan originally became involved with. It was still actively helping more than 100. After persons are aged 20 they drop off the register while around 15 to 20 new

referrals come in to the project each month. Rehabilim runs from a house in Jogjakarta which also serves as Mr McLennan’s home. It uses its funds to give very poor disabled children the chance to take advantage of existing medical, vocational, and educational services. Assistance has ranged from enabling corrective surgery and prolonged hospitalisation to simply giving advice and encouragement to children and parents who are in many cases themselves illiterate, poor and sometimes unemployed. “We don’t set up new services but use the existing Government and private facilities,” said Mr McLennan.

Rehabilim had concentrated its efforts on people who could not afford to use the local services that were available and who, if left unassisted, remained illiterate, unskilled, unemployed, and often ended up begging on the streets, he said. “The disabled don’t

receive much sympathy in Indonesia.”

The project did not deal with the mentally handicapped or the deaf, dumb or blind, but focused on people with other severe physical disabilities.

Turasmi came to the notice of the project in 1983 after her leg had been amputated because of cancer.

Rehabilim visited the girl’s home in a remote, poor village near Jogjakarta with low rainfall and no irrigation. They had advised the family not to carry Turasmi but to get her walking with crutches and to return to school. She note has an artificial leg provided by Rehabilim and by alternating between it and the crutches has continued her education.

“Rehabilim has been going very well,” said Mr McLennan.

But with the possibility of the Dutch charity’s contribution not continuing after 1984 “our biggest concern is to raise more money,” he said.