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​The Fian Foundation – Overview of activities
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1.Purpose and Objectives
Fian aims to provide as many street children in Yogyakarta as possible, with shelter, food, education and medical care. In addition, one of our main goals is to provide the children with an identity (ID), which requires to go through a lengthy legal process. Without an ID, children have no right to education or medical care. From a legal perspective, they "do not exist". To date, we have successfully obtained legal identities for 8 children, at a cost of € 80.00 per child. The experience of having gone through this procedure several times, has enhanced our ability to navigate the relevant local bureaucracy efficiently and has cut down the required time from 1.5 years for the first children to under a year for more recent cases.
Transfer of knowledge and knowledge retention is another important goal for our organisation; the underlying cultural differences are an important source of learning and ensure that we tailor our approach to incorporate these differences and ensure maximum impact. That's why I go to Yogyakarta for a month every year (at my own expense). During this time, we conduct a detailed assessment of the performance against our targets and set ambitious, though achievable targets for the future. Through this process we also set our budget and determine what investments are required to ensure that we can meet these targets. Didin, our local manager in charge of operations, monitors our finances and produces financial reporting on a quarterly basis. The relatively small scale of this project and efficient approach, means that we minimise overhead costs and other infrastructure costs, to maximise the impact that every Euro we spend has on improving the lives of the children in Yogyakarta.
We have appointed 4 paid employees:
  • Didin: responsible for management and finances.
  • Rara: supports children and parents to access health facilities, maintains contacts with the neighbourhood, and manages social media
  • Firtya: Creates our educational programs and provides sexual education. She also supervises the volunteers.
We also appointed a night security guard last month to guarantee the safety of the children.
We have decided not to rely exclusively on volunteers as experience taught us that these sometimes lack the required reliability and commitment for certain roles, which potentially jeopardises continuity of the project. We now have a small group of volunteers, which consists of 5 people who follow social studies at the university in Yogyakarta.
We discuss progress and issues / challenges we encounter on a weekly basis, so that we can come up with solutions and implement these without delay, to avoid consequential damage to the project.
 
2.History of the project
In 2014, I met A.S, a friend of my son, who was studying in Yogyakarta at the time. As I work with children who are relocated out of their homes for safety and protection, A.S asked me to join him for 2 months, to work in the orphanage in Yogyakarta, which he sponsors. A.S wanted to understand the circumstances and the personal stories of the children in the orphanage. During my stay, I learned how the orphanage managed to meet all basic needs of the children. Following this experience, I decided to start a project to address the dire situation and the lack of prospects of the children who were forced to live on the streets. A.S then introduced me to Didin, an energetic young man who already worked with street children in Yogyakarta. Didin spent 2 years to get to know these children and win their trust. Street children are generally shy and do not trust authority or strangers, but Didin succeeded in gaining their trust through his dedication to meet them on the streets 3 times a week during these years.
Following our introduction, Didin and I maintained in contact and we began to discuss our goals, what was achievable and how we could help each other. We concluded that we had a similar vision – that we were not trying to change the world all at once, but that we would be able to make a big impact locally, by setting up a locally focused initiative to help children without a place in society and who lack even the most basic human rights. We decided to join forces and try to put together a team with a high level of commitment and trust. The following year, in 2015, I travelled to Yogyakarta.
We had to start from scratch. We leased a building to create a shelter, with the aim to create a safe place where the children could take refuge. We also began offering education in the shelter to small groups of children. Following these initial steps to set up an infrastructure, I decided to set up the Fian Foundation in the Netherlands, in order to raise funding for the project and safeguard its future continuity. The Fian Foundation is named after Fian, who’s teenage mother was not allowed to keep her because she was not married. Consequently, she was forced to live on the street with her baby daughter Fian. Through legal proceedings, Didin ensured that Fian could stay in our shelter with her mother. Didin subsequently named the project “Harapan Fian”, meaning "Fian’s Hope".
After 5 years of collaboration the Fian Foundation has already achieved a lot:
• The Children are now receiving regular education
• A small hospital in Yogyakarta provides medical care at low rates
• We have set up a vaccination program for the babies
• We provide sexual education and contraceptives
• We help the older children to learn a trade, so that they can eventually provide for themselves
• A sponsor has donated a sewing machine and both the girls and boys are taught how to use it, so that they can sell their handmade items on the street.
• A number of young people like to bake, and we taught them how to make Dutch waffles (they are becoming very popular street food in Yogyakarta!)
We are keen to make sure that the youngest children ultimately transfer to a regular school, which is why the focus is on obtaining a legal identity for them. Our vision is to expand the program by renting / buying a large house in which we can bring all facilities under one roof. For now, we are already making great progress and our efforts are beginning to bear fruit. "Step-by-step" is Didin’s slogan!
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3.Financial position and requirements
Fian’s currently relies on financial contributions from family and friends and an annual fundraiser where, among other things, handmade items from the children are sold. Jacqueline also gives presentations at schools. This year, for example, the Flex College in Nijmegen sponsored the proceeds of their Christmas market to the Foundation. For an overview of revenues and expenses, please refer to the Annual Accounts and Budget in the appendix to this letter.
To ensure that Fian can achieve its goals and objectives, we require more funding. We focus our fundraising initiatives in both the Netherlands and Indonesia. For example, Didin recently manged to secure a small monthly contribution from a local social aid fund in Yogyakarta. For 2020, we aim to expand our fundraising activities to other countries as well.
There is a lot more to tell about this great project and if you have any questions any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. We are also happy to share our presentation on request. For now, I hope this overview will suffice to trigger some of our passion in others as well, so that we can continue to make a real difference.
Sincerely,
 
Jacqueline van Ewijk
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                                                   

Please download PDF file for the most recent overview and statistics. 

2020_fundraisings_proposal.pdf
File Size: 5786 kb
File Type: pdf
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The sex education and prevention program has started!

The sponsored water filters are operational! 
​Fresh and clean water is fully enjoyed! 
Benefit from benefit 2019: 
€3217,20 
Fian is already becoming a big lady! #togetherwithmom