Livelihoods

Local Labour Employed

The ZTOF/ARC project has provided the residents of Sirombu and Afulu with numerous livelihood development opportunities, which may not have existed without this community based development project. The key areas of livelihoods were home ownership, employment and growth in local businesses.

Home ownership is a very important step to the development of people's livelihoods. It gives the beneficiaries a sense of security that they have a place to call home and have time to focus on earning a living and supporting their families. With ZTOF/ARC project the people were given opportunities for employment to help reconstruct homes and water and sanitation. Another area that allowed the beneficiaries to focus on making a living is that schools and clinics were built to ensure education and health of their families would be secured. With the basic needs of shelter, health, education and water achieved, the beneficiaries were able to return to farming and fishing where they could provide food for their families.

Another aspect of home ownership is the ability to use their homes as collateral to build capital so they can invest in themselves through building local businesses, expanding their previous business or having capital to invest in their children's education. Many beneficiaries will use their home as property to finance fishing boats, buy land for farming or develop new businesses.

Employment was a successful area of livelihood on this project. The project employed 150 local people with limited skills. The project was able to train and educate them in construction and technical skills which they can utilise in the future. This source of income was critical to the project as the local beneficiaries helped rebuild their community and have a sense of ownership and pride in the project. Employment provided important cash injection into the community and revitalized the local economy which now had strong capital injection to boost local trade.

ZTOF have been pleased with the progress by the local people directly employed on this project. We have chosen to use their skills and experience in other areas of Nias Island such as Gunung Sitoli and Teluk Delam where we have been approached by BRR to speed up construction of permanent housing. With other housing projects still in progress on Nias Island these trained and experienced local people now have an opportunity to obtain employment from other NGO's in the rebuilding of Nias Island .

With the reconstruction efforts of ZTOF/ARC the community developed many supporting industries to assist the construction of the houses, schools and clinic. These local businesses were established and developed through local procurement of materials. This had a multiplier effect as local businesses grew which employed more local people and in turn rejuvenated the local economy. This was clearly important to the rebuilding of livelihoods as a stronger economy through transfer of capital proved to be the lifeblood to improving their standards of living.

Also, there have been many opportunities for local people to provide products and services to their community. This is evident with many small shops opening using the verandahs of their houses as shop fronts. This was very encouraging as the local beneficiaries have used their own initiatives to rebuild their own livelihoods.