Areas that were tsunamis-affected began to rebuild its physical infrastructure and the people of Indonesia started a new phase of life taking the opportunity to rebuild their lands again. On 28 March 2005, another disaster, a major earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter Scale hit the already fractured island of Nias. Many lives were lost and 3 towns of that island were totally destroyed.
The Singapore Red Cross funded EFOS (Evangelical Fellowship of Singapore) to embark on "Project Livelihood" a community development project and thus the Agriculture Centre Project was birthed. The funding amount of S$1,433,500.00 from the Singapore Red Cross is equivalent to 80% of the project cost. EFOS is partnering Yayasan Anugerah Hidup, a local NGO in the operations of this project. A Singaporean will be based in Nias for 2 years to facilitate and manage the programs.
The Evangelical Fellowship of Singapore (herein refers to as "EFOS") is a non-profit organization that was established for the purpose of doing good works and impacting the communities through community development projects locally in Singapore and overseas. EFOS has embarked on separate projects in the past for community developments and the AgriVenture Centre project in tsunami-affected Nias Island is one of the projects undertaken by EFOS for the communities in Indonesia. EFOS is founded as a Christian social outreach since 1978 and has a good tract record in this area of social work.
With the AgriVenture Centre Project and its various agriculture and community development projects planned as part of the program, EFOS is looking to collaborate with education institutions at tertiary and higher learning levels and volunteers from all walks of life to be part of the team to make the agriculture and community development projects a reality by contributing their times and educational knowledge in helping the disaster affected Indonesians.
Vision
The vision of the AgriVenture Centre is to equip the community with sustainable income generating skills and some community development projects.
Objectives
Through the AgriVenture Centre projects, EFOS aims to meet the following objectives for Nias Island:
- Encourage families to discern their needs, problems and implement their solutions.
- Enhance the livelihood of rural people through sustainable agriculture.
- Assist families to have sufficient food through the FAITH Garden (Food Always in the Home) project.
- Encourage farms to be productive and ecologically balanced, conserving land and natural resources.
- Train farmers to minimize post-harvest loss and educate them in environmental stewardship.
- Facilitate community development.
- Impart income-generating skills.
- Provide community health education and medical missions.
- Facilitate disaster recovery programs.
- Attempt to reduce the rural migration to the cities.
Strategies
To achieve the vision and the objectives mentioned above, EFOS has developed the AgriVenture Centre (herein refers to as "AGV Centre") project with the following strategies in mind:
Through the various projects and workshops planned, EFOS hopes to impact and reach out to 360 families (estimated 2,520 adults and children) in one year.
To implement the AgriVenture Centre and its projects, professionals and volunteers are encouraged to be part of the team to roll out the various programs throughout the various stages of the set up of the AgriVenture Centre.
