CV Tajage / Siola Gere

CV Tajage was established as the consulting and training partner of our NGO, Siola Gere, in early 2010. We operate in, and from, Flores Timur District in eastern Indonesia.

CV Tajage undertakes the following activities:

• Consultancies in social development and media;
• Trainingof local government, Indonesian university students and foreign interns, as well as volunteer placements;
• Advocacy through production of media items and lobbying activities.

CV Tajage's flagship program is the Flores Timur Intern and Volunteer Program. This is an intensive 2-week program in which volunteers and interns have the privilege of participating hand-in-hand with local people on the grass-roots community development and environmental conservation projects implemented by Siola Gere. More information is available at http://www.tajage.com/intern-program.

Profits from the activities of CV Tajage fund the environment and development projects being implemented by our sister organisation, Siola Gere NGO.

Siola Gere is a local not-for-profit, non-government organisation (NGO), which was formally established as a Yayasan Sosial (Social NGO) in 2001 in Flores Timur District of eastern Indonesia (see http://tajage.com/siola-gere)

Siola Gere’s mission is twofold:

(i) To assist in improving the livelihood, living conditions, opportunities and potentials of the people living in Flores Timur, and, where possible, further afield in Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) Province; and

(ii) To protect the natural environment.

Implicit in all of Siola Gere’s activities and interactions are the following principles: Respect for human rights; sustainability; participation; accountability and transparency; capacity development; cross-cutting issues (the environment, gender, vulnerable individuals, and HIV/AIDS).

Siola Gere was originally established with the intention of providing vocational support for unskilled, poor women and men in the Ile Mandiri Sub-District of Flores Timur District in NTT Province. Until 2005, Siole Gere was actively engaged in providing vocational training in local communities.

In 2009, we began our operations again as a self-funded organisation. We have chosen this strategy in order to ensure that the rampant corruption in the district does not impinge on our work, and in order to demonstrate to the local government and local communities that positive development can be achieved without large donations as long as projects are well-designed and participation and sustainability are foremost. To facilitate the implementation of small-scale social and environmental projects, we facilitate our operations through three distinct avenues:

1. A proportion of funds obtained from consultancies and training undertaken under our sister organisation, CV Tajage, is donated towards the implementation of our projects.
2. We lobby and facilitate the uptake of projects designed by development students and interns, in collaboration with local communities and local government, into the regular government budgeting and into existing programs implemented by local government departments.
3. We are beginning a campaign to generate donations from the global public that will assist in implementing current projects, as well as expanding existing projects and in commencing new projects.

At present, Siola Gere facilitates several projects (described on subsequent pages), including HIV/AIDS prevention in indirect sex workers; coral reef conservation and regeneration; forest conservation; and youth education.