For five days this past November, Samdhana Institute staff conducted writing workshops in Sumatra in conjunction with Walhi Riau under the Ecosystem Alliance (EA) program.

 

Rita Mustikasari and Anggit Saranta, the Samdhana staff members conducting these trainings, visited Pekanbaru and Sungai Toho.

 

Strong writing skills are essential to local partners working on a variety of strategic issues from industrial forest licensing to illegal sandmining, said Rico Kurniawan, Executive Director of Walhi Riau, one of Samdhana's partner organizations.

 

"We hope that popular media on environmental issues and our activities to address them can be produced and distributed through our partner networks, on websites and in other media,” said Rico.

 

Strong writing skills are essential for organizations to be able to express the perceptions of local communities to the outside world. Through a better understanding of local issues, public support for these organizations' activities will increase.

 

Besides teaching how to write articles for popular media, Samdhana staff conducted training to improve its partners' proposal writing skills. 

 

Samdhana plans to also introduce the program to other partners, including Wahana Bumi Hijau (WBH) in South Sumatra, Warsi KKI in Jambi, Mitra Insani Foundation (YMI) in Riau, Gita Buana Foundation (YGB) and Way Seputih Conservation Foundation (YKWS) in Lampung.