Stories of Change


Yohanis Tangibali (front) with others from Kayuosing village. Photo: CWS


CWS partners with communities in Tana Toraja to help them prepare to respond to emergencies, including landslides.

In Indonesia, community mobilization for a safer future

Kayuosing village lies at the foot of Mount Sado’ko’ in Tana Toraja District on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island in the country’s southeast. The district is very mountainous and has frequent landslides. As one community leader put it, “Not a day goes by here without a landslide somewhere.”

In 2007 a landslide hit Kayuosing’s elementary school; luckily there were no fatalities but six classrooms were damaged as was the bridge connecting the school to the village. And, while these have been repaired, materially, no further action – like community mobilization for disaster preparedness or risk reduction – has been taken.

To change this, since late 2014 CWS has supported Safe Schools and Safe Communities in villages to help school children, their teachers and the whole community prepare for and mitigate similar, and other, disasters. “The project gave us a hope that we can lessen the harm and damage from disasters, and be safe,” said Yohanis Tangibali. Yohanis is the father of five children and the village Secretary; he has stepped up to lead the Village Disaster Preparedness Team, which was started by CWS and the District Disaster Management Agency support.

“So far the village hasn’t allocated funds for disaster risk management; but we do have funds for village development. So, in May we had a community discussion and agreed that we would allocate some of those funds to several activities that support disaster risk reduction such as reforestation and improved drainage,” Yohanis said, and then added, “As Village Secretary I will make sure that the 2018 government work plan and Kayuosing budget include disaster risk management activities!”