Access to safe drinking water; the role of immigrant workers

As a community with a lack of economic resources thereby creating a high dependency to immigrant workers' remittances, an absence of governmental funded public facilities and public services, and the lack of access to government fund, it is hard for the community to resolve the drinking water scarcity that has been being faced for decades. Given that context, I will describe how important the role of immigrant workers not only in supporting their family but also in developing the public infrastructure in Kumalabru.

Their role are represented by the two community based organizations which are Wakuma (Kumalabaru residents association) and DekMa (an association of Dekatagung residents and Kumalabaru residents). The two institutions has a significant role in the hamlet development as they provide fund for provision of public facilities such as educational institutions, roads, mosque, and so on. So, how do the institutions generate money?

DekMa is a remittance delivery service institution helping the immigrant workers in Malaysia to easily send money to their family on Bawean island. The immigrant workers gives money to the personnel of DekMa in Malaysia, the personnel will call the other personnel in Kumalabaru to give an amount of money to the immigrant's family. This micro business runs well because the majority of people in Kumalabaru and Dekatagung do not have access to formal financial institution services. Before DekMa was established, to be able to send money, the immigrant workers should wait one of the immigrants going back to Bawean, but it was not too often. Meanwhile, as a consequence, their family in Bawean went to debt in order to meet their immediate needs. Therefore, financial services offered by DekMa was accepted well by Kumalabaru and Dekatagaung residents.

If DekMa is the business oriented organization, Wakuma is the philantrophy organization that raises fund from Kumalabaru immigrant workers and Kumalabaru residents who migrated and lived in other parts of Indonesia. Wakuma collects money on the project basis.

Besides the two organizations, some individuals of Kumalabaru contribute to the developments by donating their possesions such as land and timber, money, food, and labor. The individuals have a belief that in order to improve their own quality of life and the other's life, participating and contributing in any development project is a must.

In terms of the effort of accessing drinking water, In 2009, DekMa and Wakuma initiated to do fund rising for establishing the water system project. They gave fund to purchase a land with a little spring on it, pipe, and construct one water reservoir. A problem arised when the community was about to determine where the reservoir should be situated; there was a good location, but they must buy the land. Initially, there was not enough money to buy the land. Then, the owner did not want to sell the land. Finally, one person donated their land, but it was in a higher location than the former, so people assume that the water force will not able to reach the reservoir if it was located in the land.

After considering that the mosque's pipe, which channels water from the further spring, can reach the same altitude, the community agreed to build the water reservoir in the donated land and started building the reservoir. At this point, the majority of people assumed that they were constructing the reservoir for channeling water to houses. The hope was a source of getting people involved and participated in the development activities.

After constructing a half of the reservoir, in 2010 they spent all money they had. Unfortunately, In that year, they cannot ask fund to DekMa and Wakuma anymore because the immigrant workers in Malaysia had hard time to get a job. Financial crisis in 2008 made construction job opportunities in Malaysia significantly decreased.

So, without money, what can they do to continue the project?