Village communities in Bintuni have little access to fresh water. Shallow wells only reach the layer of salty water. Rain water harvesting was widely practiced during the visit in 2011 and 2012.
About the Project
The CSR project of BP had been going on for many years before the newly appointed Consortium asked Prathiwi to join their team. While previous interventions were highly focused on eradicating Malaria, new interventions also addressed wider improvements in the public health sector. Water and sanitation was among the concern.
It was not an easy decision to work for a CSR project, as Prathiwi realised this could only be a panacea because the bigger structures and their institutions at play would keep hampering communities wellbeing; corrupt elites at all governmental tiers, under-regulated extractive industries, and an absence of good redistributive mechanisms are among structural problems faced by the Papuans for generations. But perhaps a small introduction of participatory planning could matter in improving the governance atmosphere, at least among the practitioners on the field. A training of public health workers was provided so that they could learn about some tools for involving community members in existing development programmes.
Prathiwi Putri 