Family Home-Garden as a Post-disaster Recovery for Community in Jono Oge

To support the community post-disaster recovery and build their self-sufficiency, on 7-8 August 2019 IDEP organized a Family Home-Garden training in Jono Oge village located in Sigi regency. The training, which was held in partnership with YPAL Poso, was participated by 25 housewives. They are representatives of their respective families.

The housewives are trained to utilize natural materials such as chopped banana stems as part of soil rehabilitation (Photo: YPAL Poso)  

By the training, they are expected to be able to manage a permaculture-based home-garden in their yard. Through that way, they can meet their family needs for healthy food self-sufficiently. Later on, if the harvest is surplus, they can sell it to generate family income.

In one of the in-class session, trainer Putu Wahyu (left, white T-shirt) is sharing a best practices documentary of home-garden managed by community in East Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara (Photo: YPAL Poso)

In addition to home-garden training, IDEP has also delivered other support through Disaster Risk Reduction training for a number of the village representatives two weeks earlier. The capacity building activities through the training are part of the post-disaster recovery program that IDEP and YPAL Poso are working on in Central Sulawesi. When the M 7.4 earthquake and liquefaction hit in September 2018, Jono Oge was one of the most severely affected villages. In addition to many lives lost and houses severely damaged, the combination of the two disasters also stopped their activities as farmers who mostly depend on rice fields.

Hands-on practice in making a permaculture-based bed. The housewives are helped by their husbands and IDEP-YPAL team (Photo: YPAL Poso)

During the 2-day training, the housewives were introduced to permaculture as an environmentally friendly agriculture system. By using materials that are available in their neighborhood, they were also invited to directly practice how to test soil fertility, make liquid fertilizers and natural pesticides, seed-saving, and build a permaculture garden in one of the participant's home yards. 

After the training, the housewives will make their own family home-garden that will be monitored by IDEP-YPAL team (Photo: YPAL Poso)

As part of the support, each participant also received the package of agricultural equipment which they can use to start the home-garden with their family. Furthermore, during the program timeframe, they will be assisted to apply what they have learned from the training into their family home-garden. (Ed)