Climate Action Indonesia Project #8690

Regenerating Rainforests

by Health in Harmony

Project Report | Nov 13, 2019
Seeing the Difference: 3 Optometry Clinics at ASRI

By Chloe Hall | Volunteer

In late August, in partnership with eyewear company Essilor, ASRI organized three optometry clinics for the residents of Sukadana and nearby Melano and Siduk, all of which are located within the Kayong Utara Regency in West Kalimantan. Patients who attended were eligible for a free eye exam and a free pair of prescription and/or reading glasses. The clinics were in very high demand. Over 1,800 patients were served over three days.

The clinics were made possible through a partnership with France-based Essilor’s 2.5 New Vision Generation initiative, which aims to expand access to vision care to underserved populations around the globe.

The Mayor of Kayong Utara Regency, Citra Duani, who is very supportive of ASRI, attended the first clinic, which was held at ASRI’s headquarters in Sukadana. He delivered remarks that helped kick-off the three day event. He encouraged parents to protect children’s eyes by limiting their use of electronic gadgets. He pointed out that vision problems can limit children’s futures, e.g. if they are unable to meet the vision standards required to become a police officer.

Participants in ASRI’s planetary health education program for adolescents, ASRI Teens, were trained by Essilor staff to do basic eye exams. In addition to evaluating patients’ vision, they also helped with patient intake and clinic setup and cleanup.

As part of Essilor’s partnership with ASRI, two local students and ASRI Teens participants, Rusli and Yuli, received scholarships that will fund three years of optometry school in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. After graduating, the students plan to return to the Kayong Utara Regency, hopefully to the ASRI medical center, to practice optometry and provide this vital service to the community.

These clinics reached people from all walks of life. Patients were genuinely excited to get new glasses (or to get their first pair ever!), and many waited several hours to be seen. Clearly, the clinics met a real need in the communities of Sukadana, Melano and Siduk. The whole ASRI family came together to set up the clinics each day and to see as many patients as possible, despite considerable challenges, such as limited electricity in the Melano and Siduk clinic sites that made it impossible to evaluate patients after sundown. It was truly a team effort!

ASRI Teens scholarship recipients in blue jackets

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Aug 15, 2019
Celebrating ASRI's 12th Anniversary!

By Thomas Phillips | Development Officer

The ASRI team

Last month we celebrated the 12th anniversary of our Indonesian partner organization ASRI (Alam Sehat Lestari). In 2007, when Dr. Kinari Webb and Hotlin Ompussunggu founded ASRI, they based their work on hundreds of hours spent talking with the communities surrounding Gunung Palung National Park, a huge rainforest park in Borneo that was subject to rampant logging. When Dr. Webb and the rest of the team asked these communities what they needed to be able to give up logging as a means of survival, the answer was both simple and revolutionary: the first thing they needed was good health.

Cut to 12 years later: Health In Harmony and ASRI are leaders in the emerging field of Planetary Health. ASRI has been providing high quality and affordable health care, allowing families to break their dependence on illegal logging. As of mid-2019, medical staff at ASRI have treated over 32,000 patients who otherwise would have little or no access to care.

What's more, the non-cash payment program -- which allows patients to pay with seedlings, reforestation supplies, labor, or handicrafts -- is an extraordinary solution for the community’s economic and health care needs. These alternative payment options allow patients to pay for their care in ways that help ASRI to conduct forest conservation and reforestation.

In just the first half of 2019, ASRI received more than 15,000 seedlings from patients. These seedlings are then cultivated and planted in logged or degraded areas. More than 250,000 seedlings have been planted to date. And that's in addition to the 21,000 hectares of forest that have grown back naturally since logging dramatically declined, due to the availability of affordable, reliable medical care!

In addition, the value of our Planetary Health Education programs cannot be stressed enough, as the future of our health and the health of the planet depend on the next generation. Through community outreach and education efforts, ASRI and Health In Harmony have provided environmental education for more than 10,000 adults and kids surrounding Gunung Palung National Park.

Meanwhile, our Chainsaw Buyback program, which offers incentives for loggers to switch to sustainable livelihoods, has taken 128 chainsaws out of commision so far. ASRI buys their chainsaw, and the former logger gets to use the funds to start a new business. We even include vocational training in fields such as organic farming and gardening, fish farming, and goat husbandry. So far, this program has protected almost 20,000 trees -- and the number goes up every day!

In these 12 years, ASRI has helped save the precious rainforest ecosystem of Gunung Palung National Park while simultaneously making the local communities healthier and more prosperous. In fact, the ASRI model - and your donations to Health In Harmony, which supports ASRI - have made our whole world healthier!

Chainsaws taken out of circulation

Planting seedlings at a reforestation site

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May 22, 2019
Our Ambulances and Mobile Clinics Save Lives - and Trees!

By Thomas Phillips | Development Officer

Our ambulance driver Pak Romi!

What if patients at our medical clinic need special equipment, intensive care, or other special services? When that happens, we speed the patient to a larger medical facility in the nearby city of Ketapang. Thanks to support from donors like you, we are able to provide this service to patients without unexpected fees or bills. That way, communities don't need to log in the rainforest -- or participate in the illegal timber trade -- to pay for an ambulance ride. In fact, many patients pay for these rides with seedlings or other supplies for our reforestation sites.

Medical transportation is one of the most significant barriers to treatment for rural communities in Borneo. That's why it's so important that our Indonesian partner orgization Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI) operates two ambulances. This small fleet represents the only realistic option for emergency transportation for the communities near Gunung Palung National Park. And because patients can pay for their ambulance ride with seedlings or other barter items, the ambulances are affordable for even the poorest families.

But transportation is not just a barrier to emergency care - for many patients, remote locations prevent them from accessing primary care as well. Diarrheal diseases, HIV, and polio are some of the most common causes of death in Indonesia. And all of these can be prevented through access to basic healthcare knowledge and services. That's why ASRI's monthly mobile clinics are an important complement to the two ambulances - since regular checkups help ensure that chronic, treatable disease don't become life threatening!

Each month, ASRI medical staff travel into the countryside to visit communities that would otherwise have little or no access to healthcare - in fact, some of these villages are more than 5 hours away. By bringing the doctor to them, the clinics offer another way to eliminate transportation as a barrier to care.

But these services don't just benefit patients. With the same vehicle that ASRI staff use to run mobile clinics, they also collect seedlings and supplies from patients around the community. Years from now, the seedlings that patients give us today will stand tall in the forst, helping mitigate climate change and also keeping the area less vulnerable to malaria and waterborne disease. In this way, we are helping humans and the ecosystem be healthier together!

Loading seedlings to be planted in the rainforest!

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