Asia: Sustainable Development
A community education event in rural Cambodia; photo by CWS
Photo: CWS

Working in close partnership and from decades of experience, Church World Service walks with communities across Asia as they build better futures for themselves.  For example, CWS helps provide education for low-income students in Pakistan, and is helping improve schools with better supplies and better-equipped teachers in Vietnam. 

CWS believes that programs and projects must come from the people themselves and not be imposed by others.  Through a multitude of development programs with an exciting range of partners, CWS is helping communities empower themselves from Afghanistan to Vietnam--with education and so much more!

  Kong Chim
Photo: CWS

Cambodia Kong Chim and her family quit using chemicals in their garden and now use organic methods to grow vegetables. CWS provided seeds and encouraged the villagers to use composting and natural pesticides. Now villagers are not ill from the chemicals and have more and better vegetables to eat and sell.

Indonesia Lia took her daughter Rahmadani, who was malnourished, to the local CWS-supported therapeutic feeding center. Lia and other mothers also learn about nutritious foods, sanitation and health. “Now Rahmadani is getting better… she can walk and run by herself,” Lia says proudly.

Participants in the permaculture worshopParticipants in the permaculture workshop learning about rice planting techniques.
Photo: M. Rizal Kaniu/CWS

CWS Staff Participates in Permaculture and Sustainable Agriculture Training

Sodotonafo Waruwu, a CWS Indonesia staffperson from Nias, North Sumatra, was impressed with recent training in permaculture and sustainable agriculture. “I gained so much knowledge and experience,” he explains.  

Permaculture is an approach that enables people and communities to grow their own food while working with nature and local culture to achieve environmental and nature conservation.

"I believe that when permaculture is applied in the community, there will be many positive outcomes--especially increased knowledge on sustainable agriculture and an increase in the community's income.  The community will be able to maximize the use of vacant land on farming. This will increase the nutritional status especially of children, not to mention the benefit for land and nature conservation," says Waruwu.  

The CWS Indonesia-sponsored Permaculture and Sustainable Agriculture training was facilitated by IDEP Foundation, an Indonesian non-government organization addressing the urgent need for sustainable food production, resource management, and environmental education for sustainable living.

Participants in the training learned about nature patterns and permaculture design, organic farming, soil contours, water filtering, wash water treatment and wash water gardening, household waste management, soil management and rehabilitation, rice planting, types of and ingredients for compost making, technology in integrated pest eradication, and forest conservation.

Blasius Halek, CWS Indonesia staffer from the So'e, Timor Tengah Selatan office, points out: "Conventional farming uses chemical pesticides and fertilizer, which are very damaging to the environment and people's health. But the permaculture approach recovers the damage that has been done. CWS has implemented organic farming techniques such as using organic fertilizer and pesticides, and soil and water conservation. This training will strengthen our efforts and increase our knowledge, as well as provide a strong motivation for the program activities in the field."

An earth box
An earth box – made from easily-accessible materials – is used to grow vegetables and requires the use of very little water and fertilizer.
Photo: CWS
Pakistan: Addressing Water Scarcity -- The Earth Box Experiment

One hundred women from several villages in the arid, drought-prone Mirpurkhas and Umerkot districts, Sindh province, are putting together “earth boxes” to grow vegetables for their families.  

Church World Service and its partner SSEWA-Pak are promoting the earth box, also called a “self-watering” container, which uses water efficiently.  It needs about one liter of water every 15 days and about 1/3 to 1/2 an ounce of fertilizer for an entire planting season. In addition, the earth box is mobile, an added advantage for families who do not own land.

Unlike other techniques such as drip and pitcher irrigation, the earth box is easy and less expensive to construct and maintain. Drip irrigation can cost as much as $1,200 for one acre, but an earth box--made with a plastic container or tub, aeration screen (cut from a lid of a water container), soil aeration tube made of 1 ½ inch PVC pipe, water filling tube, mulch cover (plastic sheet), cutter (blade), soil, seeds, and fertilizer--can be made with local products for about $6.

During training, the women are shown a variety of substitute materials that can be used to construct the earth box.  “I knew that women would get creative and use the ideas once they were shown the technique of making an earth box,” says Mr. Madan, a farming expert with SSEWA-Pak. “This simple, self-watering container is easy to make; it does not require much maintenance and allows for the growth of multiple vegetables.”

Bagi, a local villager, says, “The earth box will help me because I can provide my family with fresh vegetables.”  Using a bucket and a half-cut Jerry can, Bagi, with the help of her family, constructed two earth boxes in which they planted bitter gourd, squash, and cluster beans.

“I found the earth box easy to make and maintain,” says Bagi. “Much of my time [now] is spent in taking care of my four children.”