Rahmayanti, or Tanti as her friends call her, is much like any other 16-year-old girl. She enjoys spending time with her friends and studying. Yet, unlike most teenage girls, Tanti recently experienced something that most 16-year-olds couldn’t imagine: the consequences of a complex natural disaster when an earthquake that struck in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia in […]

Azar (not his real name), was born in the mountains of southern Hazarajat in central Afghanistan. Azar always considered his village a safe place to live. But, towards the end of his primary school years, a group identifying with the Afghan Taliban infiltrated the village and Azar, whose family was not sympathetic to the group, […]

Mama Erni Liunokas is not “just Erni” is to her friends; she is their role model. Erni is a wife, mother of two young children and a small business owner with many accomplishments, including the opening of her first business in 2015. Four years ago, eager to improve her family’s wellbeing, she started selling her […]

In early March, 45 community leaders from five in Central Sulawesi villages started their community disaster preparedness networks by considering natural disaster threats in each of their villages. After discussing as many aspects of natural disasters they have experienced or heard about, the women and men in the room put their ideas for contingency action […]

Six months after the deadly earthquake and tsunami that hit Palu, thousands of people, like 42-year-old Juarni, continue working day in and day out to cope with displacement. When the late September 2018 disaster hit, Juarni was an active health post worker who loved her job. After the crisis’ early days, and as life settled […]

Bilau is like many rural communities in West Timor. Here, families have simple lives. They make do by farming, for subsistence and income, as their families have done for generations. They do so even though their land is arid and there is no reliable water supply. This makes growing enough extra vegetables to sell for […]

Laila (not her real name) is an 18-year-old girl who lives in a CWS-sponsored group home in Jakarta, Indonesia. In early December, Laila joined the 16 Days of Activism international campaign against gender-based violence by drawing pictures and writing poems to raise her voice against such violence. Since the end of the official 2018 campaign, […]

Buttu Tasik, his wife and four children live in a village in South Sulawesi. They, like many rural Indonesian families, raise pigs for income while continuing to learn how to adapt their farming for climate change. “Changes in the weather here are quite extreme and we have not yet been able to [fully cope] with […]

“Water is life.” It’s a common saying in the humanitarian community, and you’ve probably heard it before. I certainly have. But even after a long career in community development and emergency response organizations, I didn’t really understand what it meant. Not until I visited Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, earlier this month. Central Sulawesi was hit by […]

Thirty-five-year-old Yuniarti A. Nabuasa – Ani, for short – is a community health volunteer, farmer and entrepreneur in Oebaki, where she lives with her husband and three children. A number of years ago, Ani started selling pisang goreng, which is a popular Indonesia snack similar to American banana fritters. In fact, these fritters are so […]

A look into the lives of those affected by the 7.4 M earthquake in Palu, Indonesia shows glimpses of grief, to be sure; but there are also snapshots of resilience, too. Among the central Sulawesi earthquake survivors, particularly women and girls, most have increased responsibilities and more hard work than before to ensure their families […]

In villages throughout rural Indonesia, starting and maintain a family business, even if it’s a small or micro one, is a challenge. One reason for this is that loans for start-up or expansion, come at quite a hefty cost. In talking to CWS staff about her benefits from joining neighbors and friends in the DREAM […]

Mawar savings and loan group formed as part of DREAM, which is a community development program led by CWS with funding from the Australian government though our partner, Act for Peace. The core focus in DREAM is disaster resilience, and one proven key to disaster resilience is economic security and resilience. So, the women who […]

With 33-year-old farmer Gusti Koa as its new leader, Fetomone farmers group in Fatutnana, West Timor, is growing and changing. Gusti and his wife are farmers in area near Fatutnana, and the group he now leads was formed by 11 farmers in their hamlet in February 2016. At that time, there was support from government […]

“Before latrines were in the camp, we defecated in the river; and, often, we [women] had to wait because there were always men in the river, so felt insecure and uncomfortable.” This statement from Sanuba, who moved to an evacuation camp in Donggala after the September 2018 earthquake that centered on Palu, could have been […]

Taman was born to a poor family in Afghanistan, which didn’t have money to send her to school. So, she took matters into her own hands to be educated. “I was always working odd jobs and learning and trying different things so I could earn extra money to pay for my education,” Taman told one […]

CWS distributed collapsible jerry cans from UNHCR to 4,373 households in Sigi and Donggala districts and has constructed twelve four-stall public latrines in seven camps in Sigi district, plus an additional four in Donggala district. Nine more latrines are under construction…..

“The weather is unpredictable now,” says Buttutasik, a fiftysomething farmer in Bau village in South Sulawesi, who is chairman of the Harapan Lembang Bau farmer’s group. “This leaves us feeling confused: some of us continue planting our seeds, knowing we are risking crop failure from weather change and pestilence; others of us are reluctant to […]

Yohanis Tefu, who is 29, lives in a tiny hamlet in West Timor with his 73-year-old adoptive mother, Silpa Sopaba, and his three other siblings. Silpa is actually the siblings’ aunt, and she has been caring for her sister’s children since her sister died, along with the children’s father. When Yohanis was young he developed […]

From an early age Abdi dreamed about going to university. Born and raised in Mogadishu, Somalia, Abdi’s dreams were shattered when he was in 8th grade when civil unrest, insecurity and government disarray cause the education system to collapse, which meant that Abdi’s education ended when he was only 14. The collapse of Somalia’s schools […]