The Kechara KPMG Park carved in stone.

Throughout this year, I have continuously received wonderful news from Valentina about Kechara Indonesia. One of them was that Kechara Indonesia, together with corporate sponsor KPMG Indonesia, created a community park for the locals in West Jarkarta! They also rebuilt a toilet for a nearby kindergarden, as the children had to previously use a toilet under a tent. How kind and thoughtful…

I enjoy receiving this type of news, and am very happy that Valentina continuously seizes every opportunity to benefit the community in Indonesia. Valentina and team really worked hard for others. Happy to see this. Valentina is a very hard worker although at times she has doubts in herself as we all do,  but she does not let her doubts cripple her nor stop her. She doesn’t make excuses for not succeeding, but finds ways to win. She doesn’t run when it gets difficult. I spend little time or energy with her over the many years I’ve known her, but her results show, what little time I’ve spent with her has gone a long way. Perhaps she has shown me a new ‘formula’ to be with people and encourage them to be more. Less is more.

I am looking forward to receiving more wonderful news and updates from Kechara Indonesia. Through their hard work, dedication and sincerity, Kechara Indonesia will reach greater heights in the near future to benefit all who cross their paths. Do read below for the updates by Valentina.  I do hope Valentina does Dharma full time. This is what she can do along with a full time job, imagine if she spends full time doing dharma? Will be even more results.

I send her and her team my good wishes and deepest appreciations.

Tsem Rinpoche

Kechara Indonesia – KPMG Park  – A gift to the community

Since Kechara Indonesia participated in social pillar competition – NGO category in June 2014, we have been actively working together with Kecamatan Palmerah (i.e., Palmerah district).  The district government has been introducing us to various social pillars like Registered Social Workers (Pekerja Sosial Masyarakat (PSM)), Karang Taruna, etc. and encouraging us to work together.  Due to this new network of friends and acquaintances, Kechara Indonesia, was able to acquire a new food distribution site in Kota Bambu Utara, West Jakarta and executed many other projects.  One of these projects is the development of Kechara Indonesia – KPMG park.

In September 2014, Kechara Indonesia and one of its corporate sponsors, KPMG Indonesia, planned to perform a CSR activity, to establish an educational children park.  We immediately contacted Kecamatan Palmerah to inquire whether this plan is in line with the West Jakarta city program and whether there is a suitable location for us to execute this Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project.  Our contact from Suku Dinas Sosial in Kecamatan Palmerah, Ms. Emayati, promptly informed us that currently West Jakarta has a program to develop suitable places for children (Kota Layak Anak) and they have several potential locations for our consideration. So we inspected several locations, and we chose a run down medicinal plant garden in RW 05 Kelurahan Palmerah.  In addition, we decided to build a toilet at Teratai kindergarten at RW 09 because at the time, the children used a toilet covered by a tent.

The concept for this park is for us to renovate the park and give it back to the community to be maintained.  The park would consist of an area for medicinal plant garden and a children playground so the women of the community can take care of the medicinal plants, while their children play.  We were very excited about this project.

KPMG engaged two contractors to renovate the park at RW 05 and the toilet at RW 09 while Kechara Indonesia helped to monitor the renovation and to liaise with Kecamatan Palmerah.  The work was started by end of September.  We replaced the almost collapsed bamboo fences with strong iron fences, cleaned the wild grass and plants, leveled the ground, and divided the area into two:  the medicinal plants area and the children playground. 

The Construction

Throughout the construction, we received many additional requests from the community members such as finding new water sources, electricity sources, etc.  It was challenging for us because these requests came in the middle of construction and was not considered and budgeted at the beginning of the project.  In addition, there was a question about land ownership that we needed to deal with.  The park is located on the land belong that belongs to a dentist.  She allowed the land to be used for the good of community.  However, there was no Memorandum of understanding between the owner and the community that reflected this agreement.

At the end, we managed to negotiate with the community members about which requests will be fulfilled and which ones that cannot be accommodated.  In addition, the owner of the land signed the MOU with the community to reflect her intention in writing.

The Launching

The launching of the park was a big event and the result of cooperation of many other parties – the community members, Kechara Indonesia, KPMG, registered social worker and the district government.  The event was opened by speeches from Mr Agus Triyono, Kecamatan Palmerah head, Mr. Syamsudin Noor, Kelurahan Palmerah head, KPMG Indonesia managing partner, Ms. Tohana Widjaja, and Kechara Indonesia head, Ms. Valentina Suhendra.  After that, Ms. Tohana and Ms. Valentina signed their name on a granite to indicate that the park was given to the community by KPMG Indonesia and Kechara Indonesia.  Then, a group of children ran and played at the park.  It was a beautiful and merry scene. 

After the event at the park, we moved on to Teratai Kindergarten at RW 09.  In the second location, we watched the kindergarten teacher presided upon a group of singing children.  After that, Kechara Indonesia gave scholarship to six students from Kelurahan Kota Bambu Utara and distributed 250 school uniforms and food to the students from 6 sub districts within Kecamatan Palmerah.

This event would not have been possible without the close cooperation with Kecamatan Palmerah district, Suku Dinas Sosial Palmerah, Registered Social Workers who took care of the children and students, KPMG Indonesia who sponsored the renovation and Yayasan Kechara Indonesia.

The park before renovation

The park before renovation

Tent Toilet at Teratai Kindergarten

22th September – Cleaning and leveling the ground

28th September – Painting the kindergarten fences

1st October – Park renovation progressing

3rd October – Newly Painted fences at Teratai Kindergarten

3rd October – Medicinal plants garden area in the park

3rd October – Newly Installed Toys in the park

3rd October – The shiny new toilet at Teratai Kindergarten

7th October – The Park

7th October – Pastor Shin Tan inspecting the garden

12th October – Children playing merrily

12th October – KPMG volunteers singing together with the children

12th October – Uniform distribution to 250 students

12th October – Signing ceremony

12th October – Symbolic presentation to Pak Agus Triyono – Camat Palmerah

12th October – Taking a picture after the speeches

12th October – The children eating merilly

12th October – The children were singing for us 

12th October – Valentina delivered a speech during park launching

12th October – With fellow Kecharians

12th October – YKI Symbolic presentation of scholarship to 6 students

[Written by Valentina at my request..thank you] 

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