Stories

Fransiska Abuk Contributes to Village Community through Constituent Group

Her name is Fransiska Abuk (54), or often called Mama Siska. She was born in Wekmidar, Malaka on 31 December 1962. Mama Siska lived in Naekasa Village, West Tasifeto, Belu District, East Nusa Tenggara since attending Nela Junior High School in Naekasa Village in 1979 until now.

Mama Siska is considered as one of the great women in Naekasa Village. She actively participates and contributes for the society. In 1999-2000, she got her first opportunity to work in Naekasa village as a cadre in Health and Education field (UNICEF). Since then, many government and village programs have been entrusted to her. In addition, Mama Siska also become a role model for her 8 children and 5 grandchildren.

In 2015, Mama Siska was elected as the Chairwoman of Lalian Tolu Constituent Group (KK). Since elected as Chairman, she appears to be a confident and more critical figure. She is happy to help if the problem occurs in the community.

However, sometimes she still encounters problems that she does not know how to solve. This spurred her curiosity in dealing with the village community problems. But then, finally she participated in capacity building activities undertaken by PPSE-KA supported by MAMPU.

She joined all the training activities to become a facilitator of PPSE KA and applied her knowledge to her group’s members.

“Ever since I was elected as the Lalian Tolu constituent group chairwoman, there are much knowledge I got”, Mama Siska said.

“In addition, since I was elected as chairwoman, I become more mature in thinking and making decisions so that many positive assessments are obtained, both from the community and the village administration. For that, I was selected and entrusted into the formulation team in the village, such as: team 11 for village planning budgeting funds,” she added.

Mama Siska feels satisfied when she can help to find solution from the community’s problems. If those problems need to bring in relevant stakeholders, Mama Siska seeks to advocate to the full extent, even though there are many unscrupulous individuals who do not like the presence of constituent groups in the village.

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There is no day without problems. One of the problems faced by village community was related to the difficulty in accessing information about government’s social protection. Mama Siska and the constituent group then help advocating to related parties to solve the problem.

Since then, more people asked help from constituent group. Another problem was complain from the beneficiaries of the GSC (Healthy and Smart Generation) program, a program for malnourished children. There are allegations of cost-cutting of healthy food aid such as eggs from each child beneficiary. After that, the constituent group discussed to solve the problem by contacting the coordinator who took care of the GSC program. Then, the program coordinator responded well and immediately asked the cadres directly. During the monthly meetings conducted by the group, the program cadres directly explained and clarified the allegations.

Not only that, there are many other issues that constituent groups deal with. People complain about how difficult it is to get access to public services from the government related to the handling of Birth Certificates and Deed of Marriage for poor women and children. For that, Mama Siska went directly to the Department of Population and Civil Registry to coordinate, so that there is no more constrain on recording or handling of birth certificate and other identity rights.

The experience of dealing with other issues is related to budgetary budgeting for the fiscal year 2016. Mama Siska and constituent groups members propose budgeting for women’s empowerment. Women in the Naekasa village need to be given a socialisation related to Migrant Workers to know the advantages and disadvantages of prospective migrant workers who going abroad, as well as related to Domestic Violence (KDRT) for the villagers.

Written by: Frida Roman and Siju Moriera