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Hadrian Fraval summary of the MSF Work in the Last Four Years

Since the last Congress in Bali in 2001, MSF has had 4 meetings at Big, 2002 in the UK, Rungan Sari, 2003 and finally in June 2004 again at Rungan Sari. These meetings last for four or five days and are packed with detailed discussions of how to distribute our limited grant funds of approximately $120,000 each year. Let’s now look at the balance sheet of MSF at the time of the Bali Congress compared to now and give details of projects funded over the last 4 years. Read full speech (.pdf)

MSF Report 2001 – 2005
The Muhammad Subuh Foundation has continued to follow the mandate as renewed by WSA at the last World Congress in Bali, that is, to support the long-term projects of WSC, to support the acquisition of latihan facilities and to support the initiatives of Subud members. Although, the past 4 years has not seen direct grants to the Wings, MSF has tried to respond to the needs expressed by WSC in the social and cultural fields.
Read full report (.pdf)

MSF annual board meeting minutes - Innsbruck, July 2005
Read full report (.pdf)

APRIL 2005

Mid Year News – MSF Responding to Members’ Needs as a Nascent Fund Raising Service

Of the Subud House grants approved at the MSF Board meeting in Rungan Sari last June two have been given: one of $5000 to Purwokerta in Java and the second of $20,000 to Lisbon in Portugal.

The Lisbon group is in the process of buying the second floor of a ware-house which it is converting into rooms for latihan and offices with the intention of supporting the project by leasing the facilities.
The property is well located for this. However, the 4 floors of the warehouse have first to be legally subdivided and this can be a lengthy process.
As the group is already renting the premises and wishing to start with the conversion, MSF has changed the grant to a loan to help with the renovations. Once the purchase is able to go through this loan will be converted into the original grant. This is the first time MSF has funded a group before the property is in Subud ownership.

MSF seems very slow moving but often this is due to the legal processes that a group has to go through – as in the case of Canberra where $20,000 has been granted but not paid – before building can start and the grant disbursed. Or indeed, where the group for one reason or another is not ready.

There have been no new house applications for 2005. However, with only a budget of $50,000 pa the number of houses that can be helped is limited and no doubt there will be several made during Congress.

Recently MSF has been asked to hold money for members who are fund raising for a variety of projects. In agreeing to this MSF is fulfilling another aspect of its role as a Foundation in the service of Subud members.

MSF has agreed to house a fund to raise the cost of a house for the Prio Hartono family. This is from those who wish to express their gratitude for the time Mas Prio spent as a helper in the States.

MSF has also agreed to house a fund for the Bina Cita Utama School in Rungan Sari which it is planned to open to the public in July 2005. Parliamentary permission for this National Plus School has just been given. A National Plus school uses a combination of western and Indonesian Curricula and methodologies and is bilingual – in this case English and Indonesian. In the first phase of development the latihan hall will be used to start with 40 children, comprising of 15 children from Rungan Sari, 5 children from scholarships and 23 children from Palangkaraya.

To see the real interest from the Palangkaraya community it is planned to have an open house day at the end of April. Hopefully there will be 23 children from Palangkaraya who can afford to pay full tuition. Otherwise there will need to be more children on scholarship schemes or other plans.

Karim MacDonald and his family from Western Australia have just arrived to join in teaching and developing the school. It is also planned to hire local teachers, who will receive in house training.

The rooms around the latihan hall need to be repaired and converted into bigger sized rooms which will be more suitable for classrooms. The bigger classrooms will also make better facilities for Subud meetings. Muchtar Martins has given a drawing for the renovation which has to happen soon to be able to start in July. It is hoped to be able to submit grant applications to MSF or other donors in the very near future.

Bachrun Bustillo is the coordinator for fundraising for the Bina Cita Utama School project. He is also working on the scholarship program. For further details on scholarship and funding please contact him at Kalimantan@email.com or bcu.school@rungansari.com.

The children of the school are working together on a quilt which will be put on auction at the World Congress. The proceeds will go towards scholarship/tuition for their soccer mates who come from Sukamulya, the village across the road from Rungan Sari. These soccer mates come every afternoon to play soccer with Rungan Sari children, and they have stated their dreams of attending Bina Cita Utama School. The wonderful thing is that this idea comes from the children themselves - they really wish that the local children will be able to join their school.

In addition there is MSF's 1 : 3 matching fund with ISC toward helping young members attend Congress. So far about US$ 36,000, has been paid into the fund to which MSF is adding a matching grant of US$ 12,000.
MSF still has a further $8000 set aside for this fund which will become available if another $24,000 can be raised.

This would provide a resounding total of $90,000 towards bringing young members from around the world to Innsbruck. Should anyone wish to support any of these initiatives please go to msubuhfoundation.org fundraising page and connect onto the link on the top left hand corner if you wish to make a contribution.

Rohana Mitchell