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Pangkalan Kerinci, located about 70km from Pekanbaru in Indonesia, is a small town which is known by very few outside it.
However, Kerinci’s main produce - pulp and paper – is used by millions of consumers in countries around the world.
Since 2005, it has also been a place that steadily produces human resources for the pulp and paper industry, thanks to the establishment of the APRIL Learning Institute (ALI).
The ALI was primarily founded with the aim of being an employee training and development centre for the APRIL Group, based on an initiative by APRIL Chairman Sukanto Tanoto, who was very concerned with the development and improvement of quality of each employee.
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You’ll be hard pressed to go anywhere in Indonesia at the moment without hearing about the ongoing 18th Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang. Almost every Indonesian citizen, young and old, is participating in cheering on their home-grown athletes to achieve victory at the biggest sports event in Asia in 2018.
Competing on an international stage and achieving such success are not easy feats – they require years of preparation and training, which are often provided to prospective future athletes from an early age.
Even then, sporting success can also be due to whether there are quality facilities available to the athletes to train at.
Some young athletes who reside in certain regions, particularly rural areas, may not be as lucky to have access to the sports facilities that they require.
It was with this realization that APRIL subsidiary PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) created the Future Athletes Training Centre (PPLAMD) in the Pelalwan Regency in 2007. Launched with the support of the then-Mayor, PPLAMD was established with the goal of providing training to promising young athletes from the local community. The centre focused on three sports which were chosen due to their popularity in the area: karate, badminton, and tennis.
The centre was also part of APRIL founder Sukanto Tanoto’s vision that everyone should have the opportunity to realize his or her full potential.
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Indonesia’s Forest fires are a recurring problem. The annual dry season coupled with the use of slash and burn techniques to clear land cheaply can lead to fires spreading out of control.
Despite the reduced area of burned land in 2020 compared to 2015, fire and haze remains a serious national and international matter that needs to be tackled through a collaborative, multi stakeholder approach aimed at comprehensively addressing the root causes of why fires occur.
In APRIL, we advocate a multi-stakeholder approach to address fire prevention in Indonesia, focusing on prevention, detection and suppression.
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A few years ago, life was tough for Apo, 32, and her family.
She grew fruit and vegetables on her small plot of land in Penyengat village, but a lack of equipment and skills meant that yields were low. Her monthly income ranged from IDR300,000-IDR500,000 (USD20-34).
"Maybe because the land is not large and we were not focused, the result is not really much," said Apo.
Seeking improvement she joined the local Bina Tani farmer cooperative, which introduced Apo and other members of his village to the One Village One Commodity (OVOC) program, run by local pulp and paper company RAPP.
Read more: How a community farming scheme is transforming this village’s prospects