Communication Report April 2008

Dear board members and donors,

Over the past years Lambrineu has successfully developed a lively Community Home (CH) and we have written and won several socio-economic development proposals with the goal to set up independent and viable community based activities for the people in Lhoknga. Currently the Community Home residence the following activities:

• A Dental & Orthodontic clinic
• A fully equipped medical clinic including midwife services (still searching for new doctor).
• A Children Playgroup
• A Micro Loan & Saving Cooperative ‘Leuguna Lhoknga’
• A Farmer Cooperative ‘Maju Bersama’ including a Resource & Info Center/ Farm Field School

Community Home:
Since February 2008 the two cooperatives started to pay rent towards Yayasan Lambrineu, just as the dental clinic, to be able to run the Community Home on economic healthy principles (direct operational costs are met by rental fees of users). Total operational costs are minimized to 3 million Rupiah (~ € 220,-) per month. This budget is necessary to cover costs like a night guard, a day guard & cleaning service, maintenance costs for small & big repair and the electricity bill. Current rental fee we ask from the users equals the value of IDR 700,000 Rupiah (~ € 50,-) per month. We decided to grant the children playgroup exemption for paying rent.

Lambrineu assistance team:
The last year we have been working towards an exit formula through which the CH can be maintained and its activities become fully self-supporting per end of July 2008. This implicated also a reduction in staff and operations of the Lambrineu team itself. We would like to thanks especially Ridlwan Sulaiman (our livelihood coordinator), Nina Mutia (our social project coordinator and treasurer) and Agus Ramadhan (driver, fixer and involved from the very first days) for their strongly committed work for Lambrineu. In February 2008 we organized a small farewell party for them and other leaving staff like Ida (receptionist), Nur (cleaning service), Zulfan (Guard) and Husni (Guard). We were very honoured that our chairman Mr. Hasballah M. Saad could join this small gathering and we would like to thank him for his presence and inspiring speech. I would like to thanks them for their hard work and great commitment. Starting per May 2008, Hugo Lamers and his existing team (Mainar for finance administration and Sharifah as project assistance) will be more like a middle/part-time manager with limited presence which will gradually phase out.

Progress and future of activities:
Thanks to the vision of our (private sector-minded) board members we included a corporate focus from day one, while combining it with social care. In the end of last year we re-assessed all activities developed and concluded that some activities were not viable like the physiotherapy clinic and the medical clinic in its old set-up. We concluded also that the two cooperatives will need longer assistance after the end of the Oxfam project in July 2008, although in a limited way. This strategy is currently unfolding and we even found a very potential future partner who is willing to sustain our Community Home and project for the very long future. Last months Lafarge who owns the cement factory in Lhoknga (biggest employer of Aceh province) visited our CH several times with the message that they would be very interested in long term cooperation by using our CH and activities for their CSR program in Lhoknga. Lambrineu in cooperation with PA-CSR is currently working on a proposal. Hereby an update of the progress per activity since the last reporting in August 2007:

1. Medical clinic: After a seemingly successful completed transition towards economic independence in start of 2007, we encountered a slow but constant reduction in amount of patients, especially after the leave of Dr. Julinar for her scholarship in Padang in July 2007. The new doctor, Mrs. Enny, tried together with Mimi (Nurse) and Tjut (pharmacist) to keep the clinic running but decided to stop operations in January 2008. After reviewing the situation we concluded that we need to adjust our general health services to the new demands in Lhoknga which points in the direction of a so-called ‘clinic plus’. A health clinic where people receive specialty services like for example a pregnancy & baby care centre or TBC clinic. The coming months we will implement a further assessment to find out the major health problems and needs in Lhoknga. Based on these results we want to re-start our clinic as a ‘clinic plus’. Lafarge showed high interest to support this clinic ‘plus’.
   
   
2. Dental: Concerning the dental clinic of Dr. Safri (Dentist) and Nurhayati (Assistant) we can be very clear; they managed to develop and run a very professional, viable and successful clinic. They receive between 30-50 clients per month for dental & orthodontist services from Lhoknga and Banda Aceh while reckoning with the poorer families from Lhoknga when charging fees. This clinic can certainly be seen as one of the major successes of Lambrineu!
   
   
3. Physiotherapy: As mentioned above we decided together with Humaira (Physiotherapist) and in coordination with sponsor FDEO (Ineke de Jong) to stop the physiotherapy activities in our building. Conclusions were that physiotherapy is still something new in Aceh and such a specialty clinic has more potential in Banda Aceh. Currently, Humaira is following additional training in Java and upon return she is planning to re-start her clinic in Banda Aceh.
   
   
4. Children play group: As many NGO’s are slowly phasing out, Unicef and Dinas Social sharply reduced their activities in Lhoknga and stopped accommodating their branch office in our building per January 2008. Nevertheless, in good coordination with Lambrineu, they developed a handing over strategy of the playgroup activities. Now, the teachers Ibu Rita and Ibu Augustina manage the daily playgroup successfully by themselves, 6 days per week from 8.00 until 11.00 in the morning. Currently they have 45 children from 2 to 5 years old in their group. Families pay now a fee of IDR 10,000.- per month (~ 1 euro) as a small fee for the teachers. Last week we received the additional playing and teaching materials that were donated by our board member Rio D. Praaning. They were very rejoiced with this grateful and kind donation, which will certainly help Ibu Rita and Augustina to continue their successful playgroup.
   
   
5. Ginger project: Last months we finalized the last activities of the ginger project. Although we were faced with poor harvest results in the ginger project due bacterial rot infections and a drought during planting season (35 to 40 ton of ginger was harvested) we continued the discussion with the farmer how to improve farm practices in the future. Results of these discussions are the input for the farm groups of Farmer Cooperative Maju Bersama. To give the cooperative the best start possible we purchased a piece of land of 2,000 m2 as demonstration plot where farmers of the cooperative can try new farming methods and varieties. On this land we constructed a building of 60 m2, which will be used as storage for the farmer cooperative. The building was successfully finished in the end of February 2008 and handing over of these assets is currently organized in a special MoU with the farmer cooperative. In March 2008 all activities for the ginger project were finished and we asked accountancy firm Hasbu & Basri from Banda Aceh to implement an external audit over the full project period of 27 months. Last month we finally closed the books as our donor UNDP approved our financial and audit report.
   
6. Farmer Cooperative: As mentioned above, since February 2007 we have put a lot of effort in setting up a viable and independent farmer cooperative. This challenging project is funded by Oxfam and will last till end of July 2008. During the start-up we were faced with difficulties in finding experienced and skilled staff which caused delays in implementation. Nevertheless, we made especially last month progress; the cooperative developed its statutes and received official legalization in September 2007. Since December 2007 the cooperative has a young but full management team of 1 manager (Kiki) and 3 staff in place (Halim, Zulfanazli and Sumilia). The amount of members grew from 29 in July 2007 until 145 per end of April 2008. Furthermore, Lambrineu managed to organize a small tractor for the cooperative which is a donation by CARE. The cooperative generated it’s first income with the following business units: 1. Farm Shop for agricultural inputs, 2. Resource Centre for information & training and consultancy, 3. Marketing & sales unit to assist in sales of harvest, 4. Contracting unit to rent out water pumps, hand sprayers and tractor for ploughing services. During an evaluation last month Oxfam and Lambrineu concluded that the farmer cooperative needs longer assistance to reach viability and independence, especially to improve internal communications & governance systems. Currently we are contracting an extra consultant for the last months of the Oxfam project that will assist the cooperative with developing proper financial administration, develop and install standard operational procedures and advices on the business plan. Furthermore, Lambrineu wrote a proposal on behalf of the farmer cooperative which was approved in February by HPSP. The project concerns the production and sales of vegetables directly to major traders and restaurants in Banda Aceh. The project which started last month in March is implemented by the farmer cooperative itself. Lambrineu functions as a part-time consultant on project management and reporting towards the donor.
   
7. The Loan & Saving Cooperative: The Koperasi Simpan Pinjam Leuguna Lhoknga (KSPL) made very good progress last months. The cooperative has currently 158 members (of which 90% women) and disbursed its first 24 loans towards its members since January 2008. First loans are already repaid and first members started up additional savings for educational purposes following shariyah based principles. Manager Tjut Nur Eva Linda and her 2 staff took over full control of the organization and maintain quite good communication & transparency standards between board, members and management team. The team developed a solid business plan with realistic projections towards viability. Rabobank Foundation welcomed us to write a follow up proposal to install a software administration package to improve financial control, to further strengthen their capacities and write and install a Standard Operational Procedures document. Furthermore does the proposal include additional grass root training towards the members on cooperative principles, household economics and the importance of savings. This proposal is currently revised by Rabobank Foundation, but we have good hopes for fast approval of this proposal. The cooperative Leuguna Lhoknga is fully responsible for implementation, while Lambrineu assistance team will only be involved as a part-time advisor/consultant on project management and progress reporting towards the donor.

Lambrineu hopes to have informed you sufficiently about the progress in Lhoknga and would like to thanks all its donors for their strong commitment and their generous contributions during the last 3 years.

Notes for editors: For further information on the project or the Lambrineu Foundation, you may contact the spokesperson of the Lambrineu Foundation, Mr. Hugo Lamers (+62 815 8562 0436)