Roslin Orphanage Blog

Long before we are running the orphanage we have been trying to assist the less fortunate family in Kupang. We do not help them by means of giving them money directly but we are helping them by giving them a job. Many people who are living in the out skirts are living well below the poverty level. Because of the family planning knowledge  is not able to be understood by most of the population so it is common for the majority of the people to have a rather large family. No electricity, television and / or radio broadcasts are able to reach the people so no knowledge transfers nor education news being heard by the people. Indeed is a sad case every time we are visiting villages we will be facing a condition where a living is a matter of survival living thing. People are not lazy but most of the time they are stuck with the condition which they can not do anything how to over come the bad situation. For example many people in the out skirts can not find water. Even dirty water to do a simple planting is not available . So if we are talking about proper farming or sanitation we will always be stuck with water lagging.

Our way to assist some families are by sending their working age family members to work in Jakarta or even overseas. We are  giving them some simple training about sanitation, maintaining a clean environment, how to wash clothes, simple cooking and some other skills if they are good enough with the basic skills already.  If we are considering the girl/ boy is ready to work , we will send them to our good friends or friends of our friends.  Before sending them to work else where we will ask the boy or the girl to understand that they will not be receiving their salary in full every month but we ask the employer to keep their money in a bank. The full amount will be given when they are going home. Upon going home they will be able to buy so many things which are useful for their family such as a land for farming, upgrading their house, making a proper toilet etc.  We send them to their work place without them paying anything. We will ask their employers to pay  us back according to the expenses that we are paying for them first ( receipts will be  given to their employers).No profit whatsoever for us. Even so we are providing them new clothes, sandals, uniforms and the most important one are their under wears.

We have been doing it since end of 1980s and we are so happy if we are seeing that the girls/ boys are going home after 2 years with money on hand.  May be we have been assisting more than 200 families since we started. Some of them are even working in Singapore for the last 6 years . Recently the girl who has been working at one of my friend’s place in Singapore went home to her home town in Timor’s village.

We are so happy that her family now is able to get a house with bricks, proper roofs and proper toilet.  A very basic living condition has been made without us paying for it. The family has changed its living condition because one or more of the family members are working out side their village.  Here is one of the example of one girl who has been working in Jakarta as a domestic worker . Her name is Rina , she is from Tepas village. When she left Timor she was so low on her knowledge about being clean and how to live a clean life. Now she is so confident with her self and her knowledge sort of improved by far.

Rina’s home before she left in 2007

the toilet

the hut house ( kitchen)

We are hoping that these condition will be changed in a better condition after Rina is bringing her salary back home and using the money for the family needs. She told us that she hardly use any money for her self and she has been saving her salary since she was start working.

taking her home after 2 years way from the family

part of the road to Rina’s home

meeting the mother in the middle of a dried creek

so exited to see each other again in the middle of no where

walking home

arriving at home

glad to be able to helped Rina to get a job and bringing her home again