Thinking of Village

and Promoting Sumba

Practicing to make nutritious feed for livestock

with people in Tanarara

(Participant’s Activity of Village and Me Program)

Tanarara is one of the villages in Lewa District of East-Sumba Regency, East Nusa Tenggara, who has an area of ​​35.50 km2. Lewa district is located on 60 km away to the west of Waingapu which is known as a rice granary in East Sumba because of the biggest rice production compared to other districts in East Sumba. Most of the villagers of Tanarara are farmers and ranchers. The agricultural products are rice, corn and some cassava and sweet potatoes. While the cattle that often found in this village are cows, pigs, buffalo, goats and chickens. Agricultural and livestock products become an economic commodity of the households in Tanarara village, so it needs good management in order to achieve good results. This is which encouraged Yupiter Tanga Tawul, an indigenous youth of Tanarara village, who was studying Economic Development Studies in Wira Wacana Christian University to follow "Village & Me".

"Village & Me" is a support program for students to conduct useful activities for village communities where the participants come from. Besides being active at campus, Yupiter also participated in several trainings held by Stube-HEMAT Sumba, one of the trainings was Local Food Diversity in GKS Kawangu. Yupiter was interested in this program and proposed activities for farmers in the form of assisting how to make nutritious supplement for cattle, pigs, buffalo, goats and chickens. The ingredients of vitamin supplementation are made from banana flower and sugar water. Banana flower is smoothly cut up and pounded, and then it is added with sugar water. This mixture is inserted in a bucket and then covered by plastic till it is airtight and left overnight to go under fermentation. Then the mixture is filtered as fermented water and then it is used as an additional vitamin nutrient.

Yupiter was pleased that there was no difficulty in implementing the program taking place on 8-9 July, 2017. The villagers were enthusiastic to follow this training as it was easier for them to learn how to make their own livestock nutrition. The villagers of Tanarara were grateful and they appreciated Stube-HEMAT Sumba team that giving such program service to Tanarara villagers.

Yupiter conveyed, "This program is very important for students in Sumba, because the program encourages students to share their knowledge and experience that they got from campus, churches, organizations and social communities. Willingness to sharing and receiving should happen continuously. Young people in Sumba should think about their village and apply their knowledge that they have learned".

Young people today must have a fighting spirit, sense of solidarity through sharing skills, and knowledge for the advancement of villager’s life as the foundation of this nation. (Meliani Retang).