This text is part of the special International Cooperation section
Sustainable and organic agriculture, rural entrepreneurship, participatory mapping, village development planning, community animation… the learning that young people who attend the Learning Farm (field school) in the village of Purnakarya, in South Sulawesi, benefit from , in Indonesia, are multiple and aim to help them revitalize their own village when they return there. Focus on this project from the Indonesian organization Payo-Payo.
On the island of Celebes, in the province of South Sulawesi, on a vast agricultural land of 2.5 hectares offered to the Payo-Payo organization by an Indonesian patron, the Learning Farm has been welcoming young women for a year and young men aged 18 to 30 who come from different rural areas of Indonesia. The only condition of this donation? May this land be used to implement the mission of Payo-Payo.
“We work to transform social and power relations within the villages, to modify the balance of power,” explains Karno Batiran, the president of Payo-Payo, who does not perceive himself as a president since the organization embodies the decision-making methods that he transmits in the villages, that is to say participatory. By attending this farm for a cycle of a planting season, young people who return to their village have the necessary knowledge to help it return to the community spirit that has been lost.
Towards a sustainable and autonomous livelihood
Volunteers working for the Payo-Payo mission, these young adults mobilize villagers and farmers in the development of their village to enable it to achieve a sustainable and autonomous mode of subsistence, as well as food sovereignty. “They are truly helping to reverse the current trend, while the market is pushing people out of villages to work in large agri-food industries or as domestic help in urban areas,” says Micheline Lévesque, program manager in Asia for Développement. and Peace, which has supported Payo-Payo since 2015. The young volunteer of the Learning Farm is therefore the one who, for example, will support the farmers of his community in the production of organic compost in sufficient quantity not only to meet the needs needs of the village, but also to sell them. “There, we are in the development of the village! » says the project manager.
Payo-Payo means “scarecrow” in the Mandar language. Because this organization is the “friend of the peasantry”, underlines Mme Lévesque. It also works in concert with two partners, also local, namely the publishing house Inannawa, created to publish the results of research by students in social and cultural studies, and the Institute of Active Society (AcSI- Active Society Institute), which supports small traders in local markets in particular. A partnership known as an “umbrella organization”.
It is access to the knowledge developed by its partners that allowed Payo-Payo to identify the needs of rural youth in terms of village development. “Young adults are not being heard by their local government and their community,” says Mr. Batiran. However, the 50 participants, from 43 villages, that the farm has hosted so far now have the knowledge to help their local government take advantage of Village Law 6, which dates from 2014, and which, when we know how to benefit from it, encourages the positive transformation of villages.
Better understand the law to enable the growth of villages
This law decentralizes powers and allows small communities to obtain financing to develop projects. A participatory database allows you to register information that represents the situation of a village. “For example, a family can note that one of its members has reduced mobility,” explains M.me Lévesque. If, upon analyzing the data, the village realizes that several of its members are in the same situation, it will probably be able to benefit from a subsidy for an infrastructure construction project to help these people. » It is therefore the young volunteers of the Learning Farm who guide the villagers in planning the development of their locality.
If, thanks to the support of Payo-Payo volunteers, some villages have already become “model villages”, the organization hopes, at the end of the Learning Farm project, which extends over three years , that at least 20 villages have adopted a new form of sustainable agriculture or alternative energy. If all goes as planned, 250 young people will be able to act as community organizers in their village. “Our objective is also that at least ten sustainable rural social enterprises are created by our young volunteers,” adds Mr. Batiran. From the perspective of an organization like Payo-Payo, the return to a community life that respects the environment and each member that makes it up is certainly synonymous with progress. »
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