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CURRENT LOCATION: SUMBA, Indonesia

LOCAL TIME: 19H05

LOCAL TEMPERATURE: 30 degrees

CURRENTLY READING: Ecofeminism - Vandana Shiva

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Hi everyone!

How are you? I am pleased to say that I am keeping my promise to send out these newsletters more regularly again! Today I wanted to write in a bit more detail about all the projects and topics I am currently working on so that you can get a better overview of what I am doing on “this island” (and so that I can at least convince everyone that I am not on a two-year holiday).

Our beautiful green surroundings

Meet Hestie - The sustainability manager

First and foremost, I am responsible for everything to do with sustainability at the foundation. As this is one of the main pillars of SHF, it's a pretty broad role. I work actively with the different departments to ensure that our goal of putting responsible tourism into practice is well realised in the school, hotel and restaurant. I have to say that when I arrived, many good practices were already in place (as I said, the whole project was designed with sustainability in mind). However, as there was no person in charge of this specific topic, some things had been neglected. My first task was to write our single-use plastic-free purchasing protocol to try to eliminate single-use plastic in our operations because especially on Sumba, where there is no waste infrastructure, the end of the line is often the island’s natural environment.

I work a lot with the garden team. We recently planted 40 new trees (!) as our campus is gradually turning into a green oasis (thanks for the rainy season). The engineering team is also very helpful and helps me to realise my ideas. Dedy is a super good carpenter and has made beautiful bamboo bins that allow me to create all my “waste islands" where people can sort their trash. Thank you to the sorting, we can reduce the trash that often has to be burnt and send different types of trash to a local provider who then sends it to Java for recycling. Not a perfect solution, but at least a big improvement. The educational part of this project was very demanding and challenging, but slowly the students are becoming sorting experts!

Meet Hestie - the sustainability teacher

In line with the above, I teach all students a weekly sustainability lesson. I have developed an “Ibu Bumi” philosophy for this. “Ibu” means mother, “Bumi” means earth and “philosophy" refers to a set of principles. The “Ibu Bumi philosophy” therefore means “guiding principles for respecting Mother Earth”. I advocate this term instead of sustainability because it is a way of life and drives us to actively respect our environment. I integrate the philosophy into our 6Cs framework: Climate, Conservation, Circular Economy, Community, Culture and Commerce.The balance of these 6Cs allows us to put responsible tourism into action as we aim to “create "better places to live and better places to visit”. If you take out the “responsible”, we are dealing with conventional “tourism”, which only focuses on the second part of the definition, namely “creating better places to visit”. This completely contradicts SHF's goal, because we want it to be our alumni who own the inns, hotels and restaurants to protect the beautiful island they call home.

Meet Hestie - the sewing teacher

Each week I also have 3 sewing workshops with the housekeeping students.They each have a set day so I can teach them weekly and follow their progress. After two months, they have already learnt so much that they can operate the machine independently, change the thread, create a simple sewing pattern, sew hair ties and make a drawstring bag. Next, we teach them how to do patchwork by using our smallest pieces of fabric and making a “new” product from them. It’s so much fun to share my passion with them, especially because I can see that they love doing it!

Doing some patchwork trials with our smallest scraps

Meet Hestie - the PhD student

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I am also currently doing my PhD. I am working closely with Karaja Sumba, a social enterprise that protects women from domestic violence. Every month I go there for 2-3 days and spend time with the weavers to learn the intricate process of ikat making. I have just come back from my visit in March and it was so much fun. It’s amazing to see all the different steps and slowly understand a little bit about how it all works. On my first day I was able to experiment a little with natural dyeing and turn a stained blouse into a “new” creation, on the second day I wove on the loom with the village headman (which is physically demanding by the way) and on the third day I helped one of the weavers set up the loom for her new blue and pink ikat. Being on the other side of the island also allows me to relax, get on with my work and get some “fresh air” to return to SHF feeling refreshed.

Meet Hestie - The Activist (still in progress)

I <3 sorting trash + an upcycled creation by the students

The activist in me is still emerging, but I can say that through my work mentioned above, my vision of environmental justice, climate change solutions and collaboration between communities/cultures/countries is forming. Many issues are complex but always boil down to the same thing: respect. Just like what I try to teach my students: to respect each other, tolerate differences and never discriminate. It’s so useful for me that all these different projects are interwoven and I am constantly critiquing my approach: I am making assumptions, who could I consult for this, will this work, is this what they want? I am in the process of finding my voice and learning that I can never know everything, take everyone into account and do things without error. It's better to act today than to regret not having done it yesterday. Even writing this newsletter is moving me forward personally and professionally.

So stay tuned, because there will be many more newsletters to come!

Talk to you soon,

Hestie -x-

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