The name Eruwok was taken from the local LANI language. It consists of two separate words: “ER” which means “WE or US” and “WOK” which means: ”WORK”. Hence, “ERUWOK” means: “Let’s work together”. It is now known as Eruwok Area Development Program (Eruwok ADP) and is planned to run the project until 2015. It focused itself on programs that meet the children’s intellectual, physical, social and spiritual needs.
ADP Eruwok is located in Jayawijaya Regency, in the province of West Papua. The project covers three Sub districts: Tiom, Pirime? Pitriver and Makki. This Area Development Program is the continuing and developing program of the previous one, namely the Girl Child Project (GCP) that specialized itself on sponsoring only the girls. It had a close relationship and was associated with The Fellowship of Baptist Churches of Irian Jaya/ West Papua (not with the institution itself), which is located in Tiom Regency.
Education will be put in the first line. Talking about education there are many aspects that could be pointed out, such as: many students do not have a chance to continue their study, many are dropped out, many are young married, the parents give low educational motivation to their children, many teachers do not take active role during the class sessions and the school infrastructures and facilities that are far bellow the Living Minimum Standard. Remembering these factors, Eruwok is called out to settle the Child Study Center (CSC). In the moment time, the number of the CSC is quite limited. There is only one SCS in each village, but it is planned that in the future every club or group has their own SCS so that the students that have difficulty with their study could joint there and find the solution.
Beside the educational aspect, the economic aspect will also be considered. Economic Development Units are built and groups of families are settled to run the Economic Development Units. The Community Development and Small Enterprise Development Programs launched by WVI is designed to support the community, which mostly lives under the Living Minimum Standard. The programs are holistically designed in order to meet the very urgent needs of the community, including the infrastructure needs.
Another aspect that is seriously considered by Erowok Area Development Program is the children and community Health. Alliances are the local health centers. In Tiom there is nowadays one local health center and one local policlinic, whereas in Pirime there is a hospital established by the Papua Baptist Churches in association with the Australian Baptist Missionary Society (ABMS) and the Health Department of the second level governmental office of Jayawijaya. The lack of medicines, equipment’s and the doctors is the problem that it faces. However, the society’s participation is always announced in every activities conducted, as it is clearly inherited in the meaning of Eruwok, which is Let’s Work Together.
Submitted by Willy Sitompul for Eruwok Development
