YAYASAN USAHA MULIA - INDONESIA
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Indonesia has seen widespread development, but with the fourth largest population in the world, there are still many areas where there is a severe lack of proper health, education and community services. Millions of families continue to live below the poverty line, surviving on less than two dollars a day.
Yayasan Usaha Mulia (YUM, meaning Foundation for Noble Work) has worked for more than four decades in this vast archipelago to support communities, to give them hope and a way out of the cycle of poverty.
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YUM is a nonprofit organization that works to improve the quality of life of the poor in Indonesia and works across health, education and community development.
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​YUM concentrates its health projects in the regions where there are the poorest levels of access to health services and knowledge in Indonesia. Its education projects focus on giving young people from poor backgrounds the opportunity to experience and enjoy learning and reap the associated benefits. And YUM undertakes a number of community development projects with the goal of strengthening community networks and empowering individuals to help themselves.
Susila Dharma Britain has supported a variety of YUM projects through the years, including the YUM Vocational Training College in Kalimantan, which addresses the lack of skills and employability among poorer young people in the area by providing training in computer skills, ​hairdressing, food processing, English, finance, recycling and job seeking skills for students ranging from 13 to over 20 years of age.
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In 2022, we were proud to fund a pilot project to extend training based on YUM's proven approach to agroforestry as an approach to working with the challenging soils of a deforested area of Central Kalimantan to produce food in harmony with, rather than against, natural cycles. We also funded research and the collection of data around the pilot. This project is designed to help small landholder farmers address climate change adaptation through sustainable land use solutions.
