Volunteer from Germany with LESSAN

Selamat Pagi!

Nama saya Tanja, saya Jerman. Hello, my name is Tanja and I come from Germany. I am doing an internship here with LESSAN, in Yogyakarta, by a German Cross Culture internships funding programme of the “Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen”(Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, ifa) in Stuttgart.

My first days with LESSAN here have already been very interesting, LESSAN is a small organization but they are doing so many different things! One very important field of their tasks is working with traumatized students and elderly people in villages near the Volcano Merapi. The last very big eruption of the Volcano Merapi was in 2010, it was a very big eruption and the villagers had to escape from their homes and many people died. Especially students and elderly people still have strong psychic traumas from this eruption 2010. LESSAN is doing projects with different schools in the area around Merapi and they are also working with the elderly people.Last week there was a medical consultation for elderly villagers.

The team from LESSAN went there, together with a doctor. After the medical checkup the elderly people could chose: Do they want chemical medicine (for example against pain, hypertension, high cholesterol level, diabetic, malnutrition,…) from the pharmacy or do they prefer herbal medicine, produced by LESSAN itself? Half of the elderly choose chemical medicine, half chose herbal medicine. All medicines and consultations are paid by LESSAN, as the elderly people mostly do not have much money. LESSAN supports rebuilding trust of the people into herbal medicine and their old knowledge of traditional medicine – and not o trust only chemical medicine, which is very expensive and has a lot of bad spillover effects.  

Ingredients for herbal medicine "Jamu"

 LESSAN is producing herbal medicine, called JAMU, on itself. They are preparing teas and medicine against different diseases and discomfort of mostly elderly people, but for example also for pregnant women. LESSAN is producing this herbal medicine on their own, in cooperation with local farmers as producers. So LESSAN is taking care of the mental and physical health of the elderly people in the villages in the MERAPI region, but they also include schools in cooperation projects between young and elderly people: to improve contacts, foster exchange and mutual help and to enable understanding between the older and the younger generation.  

In addition, LESSAN is working with teachers from the local schools, as multiplicators. They develop programs together with the teachers, how teachers can deal with traumatized students at school and foster exchange of experience between schools – also intercultural dialogue projects between a local catholic and Islamic school. Furthermore there is also cooperation with the Faculty of Medicine, Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta. Medical students come to LESSAN, talk about their work and experiences of keeping company with the elderly people during medical consultation.

LESSAN is a small organization, but with lots of energy and idealism they are effecting a lot in the region. At the moment they are supported by Terre des Hommes Germany  (http://www.tdhgsea.org ) and also by Help Ages Germany (http://www.helpage.de/projekt.php?proj=lessan&seite=1) and the Goetheschule-Freie Waldorfschule Pforzheim (http://www.waldorfschule-pforzheim.de/index.php/aktuell-test/indonesien-ag), but they have started funding themselves through selling herbal medicine in LESSAN shop.