Creating Partnerships That Work
19 August 2005
A profile of Yanty Lacsana, Oxfam's partner support and liaison manager in Indonesia.
Yanty Lacsana is an optimist. You can see it in her smiles and hear it in the way she talks about her work in post-tsunami Aceh. “I like everything about my job,” she says. “Sometimes I forget I have another life.”
Yanty is from West Java and was once a university lecturer in science and agriculture. “While I loved teaching, I found it hard to really know whether the knowledge I have would benefit those who really need help,” she recalls, so when she had an opportunity to work for an aid agency, she made the switch. Now, the job she loves is working as Oxfam’s partner support and liaison manager for Indonesia.
Yanty and her staff are charged with identifying existing local organizations that are doing good work and that share key values with Oxfam, such as a commitment to gender equity. The goal of the partner support program is to strengthen these groups through funding and training and to deepen their long-term contributions to civil society and to ending poverty.
Starting with contacts Oxfam developed long before the disaster, Yanty and her team have partnered up with organizations in Aceh that are providing disaster relief in the form of primary health care, clean water and sanitation, information about laws and human rights, support for education, cash-for-work programs, and assistance in reviving livelihoods.
Creating partnerships that work is the kind of compelling challenge she thrives on. “The first priority is to build a trusting relationship with each organization—to share who we are and why we want to work with them. The second is to understand the local context. We need to understand the needs and culture of the community and the organization we are working with.”
Honesty is another critical component of the partnerships. “Partners need to feel free to be honest,” says Yanty. “To help us, they must be able to show us what handicaps us. We show them their mistakes, they show us ours.” And although Oxfam often works with groups for years at a time, our goal is for local partner organizations to function well without our help. As Yanty puts it, “We’re successful when they don’t need us anymore.”
One of the groups Oxfam decided to work with is called Matahari, which means “sun” in the Indonesian national language. Matahari is a small but influential organization in Aceh that works on achieving gender equity. Just before the tsunami, they happened to move their office from the center of town in Banda Aceh to the coastal area, which was devastated by the wave. Some staff members died in the disaster, and others were traumatized. They lost all their assets as well, but they quickly regrouped and began distributing food and relief materials to people who were displaced by the tsunami.
“Oxfam found this group through the program staff and decided to help them rebuild their office. We purchased equipment and vehicles to help them get back to their program activities. This brought back their confidence and spirit as well as a sense of security from having a more permanent place to operate from.”
Now, Matahari is helping survivors restart their small businesses when they return to their village sites. Throughout their work, they promote gender equity and community participation in development programs. Yanty sees their potential to educate other organizations—including Oxfam—on how best to put these principles into practice on the ground in Indonesia.
Yanty pours her heart into her work, sustained by the vision and the reality of helping people improve their lives, and by lessons learned early on. “My mother was a strong influence in my life. My family was not rich, but when strangers came for help, she always gave,” Yanty recalls. “She always showed that you would be richer by giving.”
