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Cooking with Ban Ki-moon
Food for thought: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (second left) and his wife Yoo Soon-taek (left) pose with participants, including Monica (second right), after cooking ceviche, a Peruvian emblematic typical spicy raw dish, he learnt to make from Peruvian cook Virgillio Martinez (third left) at the climate change conference in Peru
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span class="inline inline-center">Food for thought: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (second left) and his wife Yoo Soon-taek (left) pose with participants, including Monica (second right), after cooking ceviche, a Peruvian emblematic typical spicy raw dish, he learnt to make from Peruvian cook Virgillio Martinez (third left) at the climate change conference in Peru. - Courtesy of Kopernik
A 40-hour trip by row boat, motorcycle, car, ferry and finally a passenger plane to Peru was the journey of a lifetime for two women from Timor and Flores in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).
The two women ' Yenny Kase from Soe village in Timor and Kamsinah Palan Boleh of Adonara, a small island off the Flores coast ' were joined by Monica Christy of the Bali headquartered green technology NGO, Kopernik, in Peru to accept their United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's Momentum for Change (MfC) award.
The award is given to people who have achieved outstanding results in the fight for climate change at the grassroots level.
'Kopernik entered the 'Women for Results' category within the MfC. This category recognizes women who take leadership roles and action to tackle climate change at the coal face,' says Monica from her Ubud office in Bali.
The young woman also spent time cooking with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during the Peru trip to exhibit Kopernik's bio mass stove, which she says reduces smoke output.
'Kopernik has an initiative called Wonder Women Indonesia. This is a program targeting women in remote areas with Kopernik a bridge connecting the simple technologies that exist to the areas where these women live,' says Monica of the solar lights, bio mass cook stoves and water filters that are 'Simple and life changing technologies for people in remote areas all over the world,'
Working as Kopernik's program officer, Monica said that some 300 women ' from North Sumatra; East Java; Kupang in NTT; and Sumba in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) ' have been trained as local entrepreneurs selling from small warungs or kiosks green technology products for the benefit of their communities.
'In Indonesia alone, some 80 million people live without electricity and 100 million or more still rely on 'tree stone fires' ' a traditional wood fire with high smoke output. These people face a different level of poverty to those in cities such as Jakarta. Not only is there inadequate income, but also there are not enough opportunities to be innovative,' says Monica of the hardships facing millions of people in remote regions across Indonesia.
Attempting to make at least a dent in these figures, Kopernik is teaching business skills to women with essential technologies as their vector.
Green technology products are consigned to these women who can on sell them into their communities, making a profit.
'That is why we have introduced this entrepreneurship in green technology to these 300 women. Combined, they have sold 10,000 products, which means they have impacted more than 50,000 people in their remote communities and through this these women have reduced 5000 tons of carbon dioxide, and that is what caught the attention of the UNFCCC,' says Monica.
Winning the Movement for Change award and being invited to Peru to accept the prize must have been more than a dream come true.
'It was very exciting, probably life changing for Yenny, Kamsinah and myself. For the ladies it was their first international trip, their first passport and they got to visit South America,' says Monica.
She said her moment cooking with Ban Ki-moon was both exciting and terrifying.
'My agenda read that I would cook on the bio mass stove to explain it for media. This was because Kopernik is the only organization distributing these stoves. What I didn't know was that Ban Ki-moon would join the cooking demonstration.
'It was so unreal. He helped prepare the vegetables for the Peruvian chevice dish. So I cooked with Ban Ki-moon. He was so polite and so friendly,' says Monica of her moment with one of the world's most important people.
She said it was the first time an Indonesian climate-change project has received such prestigious recognition.
'By winning this award we may be able to enlarge our impact and through that enlarge positive benefits for remote communities. By sending these women to Peru, they become role models for the many female micro entrepreneurs across the nation.'
