News & Events
EFOS Project Betters Lives of 2,000 Earthquake Victims
After a magnitude 8.7 earthquake on March 2005 ruined towns and villages on the island of Nias located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, Singapore Christians started a centre to improve the lives of farmers and their families by teaching them to use modern farming methods.
To date the joint effort by the Evangelical Fellowship of Singapore (EFOS), Vision Network and Singapore Red Cross has trained as many as 400 farmers, representing well over 2,000 people, helping them improve their crop yield, grow more types of crops and practice organic farming on their farms.
Furthermore the ‘Livelihood Training Centre’ or LTC has the ability to train 250 more farmers every year.
It all started when a Singapore Christian named Mr Robert Liu, who has been conducting regular business trips to Nias, told attendants at a monthly prayer meeting organised by EFOS about the devastation he saw in the island after the earthquake.
In response EFOS, a fellowship of Protestant churches committed to the propagating the Gospel at a national level, formed a committee with agriculture experts from Vision Network to explore options to help the Niasans.
The ‘Project Livelihood’ committee decided to build a farming training centre in Nias. Singapore Red Cross agreed to underwrite 80 percent of the amount of $1.8 million needed for the purchase of the land and to cover building costs; EFOS raised the remainder by soliciting funds from Singapore churches.
An official groundbreaking ceremony was held in January 2007 with the Nias mayor in attendance. The centre was completed by the end of 2007 though training classes already started sometime in June that year.
Farmers came in batches to attend the training sessions: those who lived in the vicinity would go to the centre while trainers would be sent to those who lived farther away.
At the farming centre they would learn to plant various types of crops including maize, sweet potatoes, long beans, Chinese broccoli, watermelons, chili padi and rice, proceeding from classrooms into the fields and ten greenhouses and putting what they learned into practice.
They are also taught to make compost from dry leaves and use it to fertilise their crops.
Besides training farmers the LTC is also equipped to host conferences and seminars with its eight chalets and two dormitories which can accommodate up to 200 people. The centre manager and trainers stay on campus.
Moreover the LTC has hosted 50 students on community service trips from Singapore Polytechnic, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Bible College. There they taught English classes and learned farming.
Around 20 native fulltime and part-time day staff keep the centre running; churches and individuals in Singapore fund the monthly operational costs of around $5,000.
Development is ongoing at the farming training centre, which is about to have a new hall for meetings. The farm is also moving into providing training for Niasans in animal husbandry and fishing.
The next step on the organisational level, according to The Rev George Wan Tian Soo, a retired Methodist pastor and international freelance preacher who is heading the farming centre and head of the Relief/Social Concerns Commission of EFOS, is to find an Indonesian non-governmental organisation to take over the LTC.
"We look forward to the increasing participation and sense of ownership of the people here and to the day when this centre will be completely run by the people of Nias and for the people of Nias and maybe even beyond," said EFOS Chairman Dr Lawrence Chia at the official opening of the farming training centre on 29 May 2008.
In the meantime The Rev Wan, a little but hardy elderly gentleman in his 70s who is finally planning his retirement after nearly a half century of ministry, still relishes the 'delicious' corn he enjoyed with guests from Russia at the centre last September and which his 'fertile' plot of land produces in abundance.