On the last day of our annual granting meeting – which took place over the Presidents Day weekend in Sacramento CA – we sat quietly together and shared how remarkable the experience had been and how grateful we are to have been part of it.
Back row: Hamilton Chaffee, David Nicoletti, Rifka Several, Diego Salgado. Middle Row: Michael Barber, Loretta Covert, Aminah Herrman. Front row: Myriam Ramsey, Fauziyah Ishak, Jane Katz. Not present: Marilyn Schirk, Cassidy Sterling, Sonya Shooshan.
Because of your support;
19 projects in the USA, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, South Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Indonesia were awarded grants. Three are brand new projects just starting up: Sequoia Community Center in Badger, CA; FUEGOS Hospitality School & Restaurant in Ecuador; and the Community Learning Center for Women and Girls in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
This year, when we met to finalize grant amounts for 2020, we faced the challenge that requests from projects totaled far more than the balance in our bank account. But, with God’s grace (and a large withdrawal from our endowment fund which had increased by over $50,000 ) we were able to support all the programs, wonderful programs, that had requested grants.
Testing confirmed for us the truly profound effect that each project has in the world, and also that the small grants we give really do make a difference. We left the meeting feeling energized and inspired, with a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to do this work together. Thank you, Subud USA membership, for your ongoing support of Susila Dharma!
Hard at work
Changes in the Board
We say goodbye and a very big THANK YOU to departing board members Aminah Herrman (Chair), Hamilton Chaffee (Treasurer), and Cassidy Sterling (Director and Webmaster). We are most grateful for everything you’ve given to Susila Dharma and will miss you all.
New officers tested in are: Fauziyah Ishak as Chair, Myriam Ramsey as Vice Chair, and Sonya Shooshan as Treasurer. In the coming months, we will be seeking up to three new board members to join Susila Dharma USA. More details soon.
Earlier this month, Susila Dharma USA board member Myriam Ramsey visited three of the projects we support in Kalimantan. Here are some of her impressions from the visit.
January 9 – 14, 2020
Borneo Football player w her family, Myriam, Daniela Bustillo and Ostrud Steiner from Germany
We have all heard the expression “A Picture is worth 1,000 words.” I’d like to expand on that phrase to “A live visit is worth a billion pictures.” That phrase explains my experience visiting three of the projects Susila Dharma USA supports in Kalimantan. These projects are:
Borneo Football: BFIA uses football to create social change
BCU School: the first bilingual, multicultural school in the province of Central Kalimantan
Permakultur Kalimantan Foundation: works with farmers to rebuild the depleted topsoil through a permaculture approach
Borneo Football
Before
After
I had seen many photos of this project but my understanding of its importance wasn’t born until I saw with my own eyes the impact this project was having on individual lives. Many of the children come from extreme poverty with no path out of the life they see around them. No jobs, very little education, no way to move from this world to a more positive future. For these children Borneo Football is like throwing a life preserver to a drowning person in a huge sea with no land in site. They grab onto the life preserver and thus begin a path out of poverty. They are provided nutrition, teamwork with children of other religions, some English education and as they get older can join in computer classes. When I see the children, I see strong beautiful healthy young people grabbing onto this unexpected gift for their lives.
BCU School
For teachers and students, this school is a dream come true. It provides a hands on integrated curriculum where life skills are combined with education. Parents who were unhappy with the local schools started the school. The parents were not trained educators but had an understanding of children and the atmosphere needed to create a positive learning environment. The school has been blessed with teachers from the Australian volunteer program who are experienced and up to date on the best practices in building a strong school. They have helped with teacher training and together with the staff develop the curriculum to guide this school on a path to be one of the best in Central Kalimantan. Through hands on experiences like the student garden, children become aware of the importance of topsoil, how to create topsoil and the impact on the environment of sustainable land use. Classes are taught in English making BCU the first bilingual, multicultural school in Central Kalimantan.
Permakultur Kalimantan Foundation
Moreen, Subud youth volunteer from Germany, Frederika Paembonan, myself, Frederika’s new baby and her husband Jayadi in front of their new curbside store.
I think this quote from Bapak sums up my experience in Kalimantan:
“Perhaps this is the difference between the Subud and non-Subud involvement in Kalimantan, because although many people are talking about Kalimantan and want to go there and do things, for a lot of them, their motive is just profit. But, for us, because we are guided by the latihan, what we do in Kalimantan will be not only for ourselves, but also for the whole of society. It will be good for those who have nothing. It will be good for those who are destitute. It will be to help those who are really short of everything, to give them new hope, to give them new life. It will be for those who are without work, to give them a chance to work.“ (Bapak’s Farewell Talk Cilandak, March 6, 1981)
This is what I saw happening in Kalimantan. Subud members, guided by the latihan, filled with courage, praising God, helping those short of everything, giving hope for a new life.
Thanks to Daniela and Muhammad Bachrun Bustillo from Borneo Football, Setiawati Soesetyi and Wuryantiand from the BCU School and Frederkia and Jayadi Paembona from Permakultur Kalimantan for the time and the work you are doing to improve the lives of others. And thanks to all of you, members of Subud USA, for your generous donations to Susila Dharma that make these projects possible.
Watch a short video of Myriam’s visit to Permakultur Kalimantan Foundation:
Community Nutrition Night at Quest For three decades the Quest Center’s holistically focused medical/wellness approach has been helping those in need in the Portland, Oregon area.
Throughout our Fall Fundraiser we are sharing stories about how some of the projects we support got started. Below you can read about how Lusijah Marx’s project was inspired by a receiving in 1989 at the Subud World Congress.
Lusijah Marx:
Quest Center for Integrative Health
At the 1989 Subud World Congress, Lusijah Marx received very clearly that she should focus her dissertation on persons living with HIV/AIDS. Although she’d had little prior interaction with that community, the receiving was clear, and it changed the course of her life.
Lucijah Marx
It was the 1980’s, a time when the AIDS epidemic was causing panic and fear in many places. No one fully understood this new and unknown virus. Some hospitals would not treat people with AIDS symptoms, and those that did often isolated patients and dressed staff in masks and gowns, adding to the terror. As word spread that most of those who mysteriously fell sick and died were gay men and IV drug users, healthy people tried to distance themselves by regarding AIDS as an illness facing “others.” It was these “others” that Lusijah’s receiving at World Congress prompted her to work with.
Quest Center’s “Community Nutrition Night,” funded by a grant from Susila Dharma USA, offers weekly dinners that nurture, support and empower the community through shared meals and workshops. 30-35 men and women living below the federal poverty line attend each dinner and accompanying workshop.
For her dissertation research, Lusijah looked at the positive effects of guided imagery and hypnosis on HIV+ men. One participant in her study was a young man named Lucas Harris. Only 26 years old, Lucas had been diagnosed with AIDS and told he had only a short time left to live. He deeply felt his desperate situation and made the decision to live each remaining day as fully as he could. Lucas joined Subud, knowing that it was Lusijah’s spiritual path and the path of others whom he respected.
One night, after a particularly emotional healing session, Lusijah had a powerful dream. In her dream, she and Lucas had created a healing center where marginalized people could receive care in a community-focused model. The healing center offered alternative treatments such as acupuncture, and addressed lifestyle patterns such as smoking, drugs, eating, sleeping, etc. The dream also showed her changes that she needed to make in her life to have a bigger heart, and changes that Lucas needed to make in his life. The next day, she was astounded to learn that Lucas had dreamed the same dream, even the parts about needing to make changes within themselves.
Though neither of them felt that they had the practical skills required to create such a center—Lucas had worked as a hair stylist, and Lusijah, mother of four, as a nurse and clinician—both felt strongly that they should give their best efforts to make the dream a reality. They started every day with latihan and the intention to be open to anything that would help develop the healing center. It took around a year as they tried to follow what they received in latihan, which included finding a lawyer to help them apply for 501(c)(3) non-profit status. Although they made mistakes along the way, they kept learning, they persevered, and eventually they were able to make their dream a reality.
Lucas died in March of 1996, but Lusijah has continued to work at Quest Center for Integrative Health, which has grown and seen many successes over the decades. Today Quest is a thriving holistic health center providing traditional, complementary and alternative treatments, as well as support for dying peacefully and living fully. It now has 71 employees and three locations, and is highly regarded by the local medical community as well as the Portland, Oregon community at large. Quest Center is a testament to the power of the latihan and all that can come about when we truly follow our inner receiving.
Clickhereto learn more about Quest Center for Integrative Health.
Brothers and sisters, let us praise And thank the One Almighty God, For we have received His grace Which has enabled us to worship Him.
(from Let Us Be Sincere, song at Lebaran in Bapak’s House, Cilandak, December 11, 1969)
Throughout our Fall Fundraiser we have been sharing stories about how some of the projects we support got started. Below you can read Monica Clarke-Bennett’s story of I Protect Me and how it began in South Africa just a few years ago.
In Cape Town, South Africa on February 2, 2013, a seventeen year old girl was brutally gang raped and murdered. Sadly, gender-based violence in South Africa is widespread.
I Protect Me volunteer Sexual Violence Prevention Workers give training to school children and vulnerable adults.
Monica Clarke-Bennett
Monica Clarke-Bennett, feeling she needed to take action, wrote articles to local newspapers expressing her distress. Monica had always been deeply affected by stories of abuse of women and children, in part because she herself suffered abuse as a young woman. She knew first-hand the powerlessness felt by abused women; they endure their suffering silently, afraid to expose their abuser, afraid of the stigma brought upon their family if they speak out. Although she didn’t yet have a specific plan of action, Monica wrote in her articles that the only way to break the cycle of violence was to start with children and empower them while still young.
One of her articles was read by someone traveling on an overnight flight from USA to Kenya. This person was so moved by what they read that upon landing they immediately got in touch with an individual they knew in Nairobi who taught Sexual Violence Prevention in local schools. That same morning, Monica received an email inviting her to Kenya to be trained by their organization, Dolphin Anti-Rape and AIDS Awareness Outreach (see the Dolphin YouTube video here).
Upon learning of her intention to start up a project, Susila Dharma France offered to pay her airfare to Kenya. Monica traveled to Nairobi a short time later and visited schools where Dolphin’s curriculum was being taught. “I saw them give 2-hour sessions to three groups of about 500 primary school children who, with song, dance and repetition learnt lessons such as ‘Nobody has the right to touch my private parts,’ while each child with exaggeration touched their own private parts between whoops of laughter whilst dancing — and I could see the lesson sink in like water into dry sand.” Monica immediately knew that curriculum was exactly what she needed to bring to South Africa.
Thanks to the generosity of several Subud members, she was able to secure sponsorship for airfares for a team from Nairobi, Kenya to travel to South Africa and train 12 volunteers (Dolphin conducted their training for no fee). Once the first group of Sexual Violence Prevention Workers in South Africa was trained, they were ready to start sharing their message with children!
Trainers at I Protect Me
I Protect Me, as the new organization was named, was registered and launched as a NPO (non-profit organization) in Cape Town, South Africa in March 2014. They began leading trainings in local primary schools at that time. Their program consists of 10 lessons teaching both boys and girls that they have the power to resist abuse by setting their own boundaries and respecting the boundaries of others. Children are taught to protect themselves without using any weapons: “Use your voice, free yourself & run!” The trained Prevention Workers also train and supervise volunteer Peer Trainers age 16 and older, who then give sessions to even more children. They began giving training in primary schools and have since expanded to work in high schools as well. Monica estimates that to date I Protect Me has reached over 10,000 children and adults. Although challenges have been a constant — from needing more funds to retain staff, to dealing with the realities of drugs and gangs — through it all they have persevered, the program has gained widespread acclaim in the community and continues to grow.
Monica credits the success of I Protect Me to the latihan. Again and again, support for her project has come from unexpected people and places. She encourages all Subud members to follow our Inner Guidance; every one of us has the power to create change once we let go of our fears and doubts. Monica feels it isn’t she who is doing all the work of I Protect Me: “It’s being done. With the realization of our Inner Guidance, all we need to do is take the next step, then let this Power take over. It Really Does Work. I say this with 150% confidence!”
