At a onetime, Balbir Mathur, Co-Founder, Trees for Life says…
“My friends, you have in front of you someone who had had the undeserved privilege of having gone through education exclusively as the result of a statistical error. I went to college in San Francisco, I did two master’s degrees at Stanford, I completed a PhD, I worked at the World Bank, and taught at Harvard…Now I carry in my heart a passion to try and free my people from poverty. I’m free now because by an accident, I had access to education. I can choose to teach at Harvard or Stanford or wherever (Sam Daley-Harris, State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report 2009)
Saving is an old human culture. The basic principle is to put up excess resources into reserves for future needs, emergencies and to build wealth as well. In the beginning of civilization, the frontier society saved in kinds such as food commodities, treasures, and other fixed assets etc. Now, in modern world, saving constitutes money, shares and paper-based investment through banking and finance instruments; but there is still a part of society uses in kind models as means of saving.
Majority people eager to save whenever there is any disposal money. Unfortunately poor inhabitants strive to save because of limited incomes and in most cases the earnings are under the consumption level. In turn, poor people are lack of saving to smooth their lives, to face unprecedented events and to improve future prosperity. Hence, to deal with those constraints, Wooden Saving Program is established which is based on a saving methodology but it is not in form of monetary (money), it in form of tree (celluloses, cambiums and woods) instead. Trees are planted and for certain periods those can be harvested for sum amount of money.
The root idea of Wooden Saving was inspired by Sri Lankan culture. In 2003, I went to Hikadua district in the southern region on the edge of Indian Ocean (one of areas which destroyed by Asian Tsunami in 2004) to assist NGOs to set up microfinance institutions. During field visits, I met local community leaders and unbanked rural inhabitants who are majority poor and lack of saving. Interestingly, there is a local culture which remains strong in the societies which mandate adult family members planting tress when there is a birth event or a new baby born. The noble objective of this planting trees culture is two folds: Firstly is a provision wood material for the baby when she/he gets married and need a new house, and secondly is future preservation.
In short, I translate the idea of the idea of Wooden Saving and start the program in my home country Indonesia with minor adjustment on the philosophy since it is aimed to break out the poverty trap by helping poor people to secure their children future education. I believe higher education can be a powerful tool to break down the vicious circle of poverty. Unfortunately, in Indonesia many young age kids are unable to access higher school because their parents are poor, lack of money and no saving to pay school fees, uniforms, books etc. The poor parents can’t save some money as the wealth do. Dropped out from primary or secondary school, in the young age, they have forced to work in low paid labor, later on they have become poor like their parents. Obviously, they are premature adult.
South Sumatra Project and Bukit Barisan Conservation
The first Wooden Saving Program is initiated in Kisam sub-disctrict of OKU Selatan Regency – South Sumatra Province. The reason to choose these villages for the first program was to ensure that there is someone will work on it. I discussed with my late cousins (a retired colonel of army force (TNI) who returned back to our-ancestor village regarding my idea of Wooden Saving.
The first Wooden Saving initiative was developed in Siring Alam, Pulau Kemiling, and Pengandongan villages; remote villages about 9 hours on the road journey from the capital city of Palembang. Those villages are located in the slope of Bukit Barisan highland of South Sumatra. The area is a tropical mountain and excessively cultivated by local inhabitants for coffee beans plantations. Most of the forest have already been devastated for many years particularly during the high price of coffee been commodity.
The Wooden Saving is started by giving 50 trees to each household that to be planted among the coffee beans population. At the moment, nearly 15.000 trees have been distributed to 300 households and surprisingly those households that involved in the program, now, planting more trees by their own initiatives. The program has been eagerly accepted by the villagers and they promise to pay extra cares for the trees and concern toward their kid future living.
They are encouraged to plant more trees on their own cost and endeavors. The next phase is to set up a certification system for those trees to secure the ownership of those trees and to prevent illegal logging. With this certification model, those trees can be traded into the commodity market – future contract agreements – that allow the villagers earn money after 10 year period of planting instead of 20 years of planting.
Central Java Project and Sugar Palm Trees (Gula Aren) Community
The second Wooden Saving Program is in Majenang area of Cilacap Regency-Central Java provinces. The endeavor is aimed to support palm sugar famers who are highly demand on palm nectar to produce palm sugar. The program involved 30 farmer households who produce “gula aren”. The initial activities were to conduct training how to produce crystal palm sugar and build a communal firewood oven which can be shared by the whole palm sugar farmers in the village. The next phase is to cultivate palm sugar trees to provide sustainable palm nectar for those farmers.
The Wooden Saving Initiative embraces multi objectives. It is an anti-poverty tool and it is also conservation – to save the earth from environmental disasters including global warming, climate change. Finally, the principle is more trees are planted would bring broaden opportunities for poor children to reach their dreams. More trees grow those can reduce carbon emission that produced by mostly fossil oil-based activities and industries. Those can re-establish natural ecological system which is favorable for living organism. I welcome you to support the Wooden Saving Program by Donating only a small change of your shopping.
