Voice of Change for My Village

“I was afraid to speak and express my opinion in front of adults. It was my first experience, but with the encouragement from the staff of Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI) East Halmahera Program Area, I started to speak up,” said Shiren, 14, a member of the Child Forum in East Halmahera regency.

In the village where Shiren lives, children are rarely involved in expressing opinions both informally and formally because they are considered having no insight and good understanding regarding the contribution of development in the village. However, this time Shiren gets an opportunity to speak up for her opinion. Shiren is one of the children who are members of the Children's Forum who is accompanied to express opinions related to problems or ideas for activities that will be carried out together.

Shiren is chosen by her friends after the Children's Forum receiving training from WVI on problem-solving using the ‘problem tree’ method. The Children's Forum also received other training such as training on children's rights and obligations and also the importance of children's voices for the village development and the importance of Children's Forum meeting. The series of training make Shiren become the representative of the Children's Forum in conveying his hopes to the village government in 2022 through the Village Development Planning Meeting (Musrenbangdes) on September 20, 2021.

In Musrenbangdes, Shiren highlighted the lack of secondary education facilities in her village. So far, junior high school students in her village have to walk about 3 km or about 2 hours 45 minutes to study in the neighboring village.

“We are from the Children's Forum, so far we are in school and we are often tired and some even faint because of the long-distance and the heat. However, we have got no assistance from the village government for us, for that today we ask the village government to help see our situation,” said Shiren when conveying her aspirations while crying. Shiren’s opinion encouraged empathy from the people to speak out and support the dreams conveyed by the Children's Forum.

After Shiren expressed his opinion during the Musrenbangdes, there are several mutual agreements to allocate education funds from the Village Income and Expenditure Budget (APBDes) for the 2022 fiscal year, including providing transportation facilities to support children to school and providing reading parks for children in the village.

The village government positively welcomes the proposals given so that children in the village can get the right to education and the opportunity to participate in every village development. It is even immediately included in the minutes of the Musrenbangdes.

The presence of Shiren brings a positive impact on the Musrenbangdes process. At first, the Musrenbangdes participants were more focused on physical development but then shocked when Shiren made a suggestion that was not thought of by adults. Shiren brings a new color by sounding for the village change. Hopefully, there will always be an awareness in the community that children also need to be heard in village development plans.

Written by Novandi Batahari, Development Facilitator for WVI in East Halmahera Area Program