Project director’s memo:

It was a starting point for my long cultural journey that began with a good intention to connect the arts and development business sectors. And it was related to the newly born foundation called Buah Hati Bumi. The co-founder Eko Prawoto said there was a strong will to give hearts to the community and support a better living. So, I thought from his words that he was planning for the long term with a long breath. However, it was not easy to clearly understand the abstraction and ambiguity of his words “to give a heart.” I have a good understanding of the chronic problems in the two areas, arts and development business, so to minimize the problems from the beginning, I put transparency, financial use, trust, and honesty among my team members at the top of my list. It took a year to look at and observe the people who participated in the process of establishing the foundation. And I visited the site last September because I needed to understand the relationship between the region where the first pilot program of the foundation was carried out, and the team was formed. In conclusion, it was a great pleasure for the villagers to recover ‘Sendang’ through this pilot program. However, I could find that this program had no choice but to have a different purpose from the villagers for those who delivered this opportunity to the villagers. This difference is the starting point for several common problems for development businesses worldwide. According to the Indonesian government statistical analysis, Gunung Kidul district, part of the Yogyakarta Special Regency, was considered one of the areas still behind the others due to the high poverty rate. However, on my first visit to this place, I had no choice but to question government data on whether it was indeed a poor area because the natural environment of this village was priceless, which people in any city could not easily have. The main problem in that area was water availability, which was essential to agriculture. Gunung Kidul is now in much better condition, the infrastructure has improved, and public facilities like the water pipeline are available. However, there are still some villages that have problems with water. Tungkluk sub-village part of Beji village, Ngawen sub-district, Gunung Kidul district, is famous for the Watu Gendong. Ngawen sub-district was a new name after being stated to be part of the Yogyakarta Special Regency. Before, it was an enclave surrounded by others and experienced a series of changes from the Kingdom and Colonial period to part of the Yogyakarta Regency. Ngawen used to be part of the Mangkunegaran territory from 1830-1952, in which the influence of Surakarta in architecture was also apparent in the Tungkluk sub-village. This village was selected as an entry point to the pilot project to learn more about the village’s dynamic during modernization. This might be a quiet place to hear the voice of ordinary people living as part of nature. Through the LWT project, I want to deliver the story of ‘Sendang’ in Tungkluk.