Ivo Christa

Alternative Alocation to Eradicate Prostitution

2011-06-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

I was writing a letter page opinion on this when I realize that I should make this as direct as possible so that everyone can save their time reading but still understand the main point.

The most practical program for this is to provide the jobs instead of skills for the prostitutes which I would identify as unskilled labor. It is written in above paragraph that the Rp. 2.1 billion fund (approximately $240.000) from the local government planned to be use for skill building be it for doing handicraft jobs or other service jobs.

I would say that the best way for the government is to ask for some collaboration from private companies / outsourcing companies for these labors beside creating jobs themselves to best use of their fund, or the government might make their own outsourcing firm. The problem with these unskilled labors are that their previous jobs allows them to adjust their income, if they are willing and able to take on more orders, they could earn more. If one day they don't feel like taking any jobs, they can just stop and start anytime they want. And one thing that needs to be clarify is that, how many are these unskilled labors, and their ability to read and write and count.

If there are 10000 unskilled labors in the pool, with 5% that are able to write read and do basic counting, these people will have no problem finding jobs. But finding jobs that they would keep is a bit challenging. 500 people could work at malls, as shop keepers, restaurants, or at any retail shops, they could also work at clubhouses or golf caddies. The pay won't be high, but working at crowded place / entertainment center might make working don't feel like working for some.

70% of the unskilled workers, should be recommended to work in labor intensive factories which are ready to accept high influx of workers in normal times. 7000 unskilled workers are not difficult to find jobs in east java, since the province is an industrial area. Companies that are labor intensive such as manufacturing companies for example: clothing manufacturers, food processors, tobacco companies, home appliances company, and many others. Services companies would be cleaning company, general office company (receptionist, security, sales, etc), pests eradication companies, etc.

The rest of the workers are those can go into niche workplaces, such as therapy places/massages houses. These workers does need to go to therapist school for a month, then they are ready to be placed in therapy houses. Some if they prefers, can start their own business selling street snacks in schools/doing catering, etc. they could also be transmigrated to out of Java to reduce population as well as developing other part of the country. Then those out of Java will work on the land, growing crops, building new villages and towns.

Rather than using the fund for training to make handicrafts/services, the fund could be allocated for microfinancing these people, encouraging them to make home industry (for those who can't stand working 8-5). The rest of the budget will go for creating an outsourcing company (In USA, this would be called employment agency). The firm will work to input these workers into the society through available unskilled jobs ready in the job market, thus would grow the overall economy of the province. Some small quantity of the fund might be allocated for scholarships (these are for those underage girls in the pool/ any young adults). If there are any more leftover funds, it will be use to give temporary housing and food or transmigrating purposes for those who finds difficulties moving on to the current normal societies.

The underlying idea came from my workplace. I worked in a labor intensive company, where more than 80% of people working in the factory came in with no skill nor any credential, other than that they are recommended to have graduated from high school. The last 'requirement' was not really a requirement, its a recommendation.Why would high school certificate was a recommendation and not a requirement? Because the real schooling actually happened at workplace.Reading writing skills are not required. As long as they could understand and follow instruction and work hard.

If I'm given the chance to allocate these funds, those things I would pursue after I define the definite population, how many are the workers and what are their basic skills and background, I would also would like to map out potential employers/manufacturers/job market. Obama said that America was built through making goods to sell, that's exactly the answer, these people should be outsourced to companies that make real world needed goods which can be sell and most of these jobs are an answers to unskilled labors and can takes big number of workers at one time.

In the end if some 3% of the labor after given the equal opportunity to takes on other jobs still prefers to come back to their old jobs in the prostitution, then consulting service should be provided. But after all of these efforts are done and still they would like to come back to the jobs, then government effort stops there. No more fund are allocated for this population.

Personally I would be hoping that somehow someone with the power to allocate the fund would come across this opinion and would consider the proposals.

Hans Rosling's new insights on poverty | Video on TED.com

2010-03-07T02:30:00.000-08:00

Hans Rosling's new insights on poverty | Video on TED.com

When one thinks of poverty, most people would think instantaneously of wealth, disease, and other aspects of it. Hans brought up a very good point in terms of looking at poverty from different dimensions and considering culture, environment, health, human rights, not only wealth and government as a factor defining a country's real value. These factors that make up a country, were rank in the order of importance for the citizen's life and future generations into a set levels where wealth stays at the low end and human rights as well as culture ranks the highest.

Culture is one tricky factor, since it is a very subjective topic. In certain area on the earth, a particular groups of people has the culture to intermarry their own family, this is not something that is surprising, since there are several groups that does that. However, by doing this, the future generations born from intermarriage families has a big chance of getting rare genetic problems and some research also mentioned that these children might have blood disorders. Would they be a happy and fulfilled family when there are a lot of health problems in the family? I would say, any parents will want their children to be happy and healthy*, and if they know these scientific facts, would they still stand by their culture or think more on the potential health issues that might affect their children?

In respond to Hans' rank, I will vote for health to be rank above culture for reasons above. And besides, in some particular culture, human rights and culture might not go hand in hand. Culture comes from human habit and community values, furthermore, sometimes people's value are corrupted* in some ways causing the generation afterwards to adapt to the corrupted ways and calling it culture or traditional values.

I would also like to question on the validity of the statistical numbers used to create the diagram, are they generated using the same standard and rule? and how would you quantify things such as health/education accurately? there are too many assumptions and variables associated with the statistic used, but the graph, served as a great support and introduction for the topic. (When I think of this, I think it like a Wikipedia. Gives you a good overall picture and basic understanding of what it is).

In conclusion, Hans Rosling's insight on poverty gave a great new look on poverty which all policy makers should understand and acknowledge, especially when they are enacting policies.

(*I am just stating some possible effect of the culture, I am neither trying to undermine any culture or going against it).

~ Ivo Christa

Solving Illegal Indonesian Tuna Fishing

2009-11-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

The Golf Experience

2009-08-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

"Focus on how you hit the ball than the result"

There I was in the Pakuwon Driving Range. The first lesson was to pick the right stick for a beginner as me. My Instructor let me choose any stick in the bag, but he recommends that I use the number seven or eight. As far as I can remember, he told me that the smaller the number the longer the stick would be and the harder it gets to use. So I picked number eight as recommended.

Since the beginning, he told me that I have to use my left hand to hit the ball while the right is just for assisting. When I use my right hand to hit the ball (I have been a righty as long as I live), I always end up hitting the golf stick to the mat and missed the ball. If I focus on controlling my left hand and let my right hand out of my attention, I will, most of the time, hit the ball and made the beautiful 'woot' sound as the stick lightly touched the mat.

My job is not done. In order to deliver the ball curvely, I have to pay my attention to hit the ball. Focus on the ball and not on the result. More than twenty times in a 150 balls game, he kept on reminding me to keep looking at the ball even when I have done a half way swing(When the iron staff almost touched the ball).

If there is a beginning and a middle, it has to have an end. Before a swing, we have to choose the right stick. In the process of a swing, left hand and focus are the main thing and to close a good swing, we have to make a 'big' swing. I tend to close my swing quickly. This means that right after I hit the ball, I eagerly search for where the ball had landed and forget about the swing. This will make my swing smaller than it should. A small swing will not hit the ball straight and far.
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I realized that all these golf's 'golden rules' speak in my other things too. Sometimes in work/school/any other social places, we have to use our left hand. Meaning that we work together with people we don't really know/comfortable with might leads to better outcome than we worked with people we always work with.

Focus on the process, even tough it seems so sure. Focus till the end of the process/forcus till the job is done. I tend to look for the 'glory' behind the job, and that tends to drag the results down. Same goes with the closing of the swing. Seemed nothing could go wrong, and I overlooked it. Well, that cause my ball to go out of line, hit the fence and roll to the ground.

And when the swing is done, relax, we still have enough time to look where the ball will land because we have done a good full swing.

This is my golf experience.

Ivo Christa
July-August Summer '09
Picture of Tiger wood its not mine, taken from google image and it belong to its owner

Similarity between 1982 and 2009

2009-06-08T15:00:00.001-07:00

"There are innumerable tax loopholes that help the rich but are without relevance for the poor and bail-outs for corporations and protection for industries when the workers' wages are far above the average for American industry.
~ Mancur Olson on Inequality, Discrimination, and Development pg. 174 of The Rise and Decline of nations (1982)

And yet this resembles 2009 bail-outs and current situation.

Who Benefit From Recession?

2009-06-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

This Video was uploaded on April 03, 2008
Listen at 1.24 duration

This marketing person was trying to publicize Burgatti's new car type 'Hermes'which costs more than $1.7 M.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/feb/08/economics

Poster - Soldiers of Conscience

2009-01-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College's film series events. Since there are a lot of text needed to be put up, I cramped all on the right side, occupying most of the poster.
Date: 1 October 2007

Tools: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Mac

A great documentary film by Question of Conscience LLC.
http://www.socfilm.com/

*Picture taken is from the website, and belong to their respective owner
*The College activities Board logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership Division

Poster - The Trials of Darryl Hunt

2009-01-22T23:57:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership Event. There are a lot of text that have to be put on the poster thats why text occupies the poster more than the picture. The background is a sample form for convicts, i cleaned it and put the text on it.
Date: 1 October 2007

Tools: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Mac

*Picture(s) taken is from the search engine, and belong to their respective owner(s)
*Logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership

Poster - Basketball League

2009-01-22T23:47:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College Charles H. Mitchell Activity Center. The first basketball league in the college held by the activity center. I purposely made the image stands out more than the text to catch people's attention.
Date: January 2008

Tools: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Mac

*Picture(s) taken is from the search engine, and belong to their respective owner(s)
*The College activities Board logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership Division

Poster - Commitees

2009-01-22T23:44:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership's Committees. The purpose of the poster is to inform the student body that there are openings for getting involve in the campus.
Date: Unknown (I could not remember the exact date)

Tools: Illustrator CS2, PC

*Logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership

Poster - Film Series Committee

2009-01-22T23:34:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership Film Series Committee. To catch people attention, I emphasis on the word 'Everyone is welcome'. The picture on top of the words is a camera lens cartoonized to create an interesting image.
Date: Unknown (I could not remember the exact date)

Tools: Illustrator CS2, PC

*The College activities Board logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership

Poster - Teaser for Unity fair

2009-01-22T23:25:00.000-08:00

A Teaser Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College College Activities Board events. I put the date and time as well as the location in the center of the poster to catch reader's attention to the events.
Date: 5 May 2007

Tools: Illustrator CS2, Mac

*College Activities Board Logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership

Brochure - Apparel Drive

2009-01-22T23:22:00.000-08:00

Brochure I designed for Seattle Central Community College Indonesian Club. As a way to say thanks for people who donate to the Indonesian Club's Winter clothing drive.

Date: 20 January 2008

Tools: Illustrator CS2, Mac

*Logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership

Bookmark - Indonesian Club

2009-01-22T23:10:00.000-08:00

Bookmarks I designed for Seattle Central Community College Indonesian Club. As a way to say thanks for people who donate to the Indonesian Club's Winter clothing drive.

Date: 20 March 2008

Tools: Illustrator CS2, Mac

Poster - Lunar New Year

2009-01-22T22:57:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership events. I put the date and time as well as the location in the center of the poster to catch reader's attention to both events.
Date: 25 january 2008

Tools: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Mac

*Picture(s) taken is from the search engine, and belong to their respective owner(s)
*Logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership

Poster - ASC Associate

2009-01-22T22:42:00.000-08:00

A Poster designed for Seattle Central Community College Associate Student Council together with my colleague Duong Tran. He was a newly trained graphic designer at that time, and I was told to train him for his first task. Everything was his design (with some adjustments) other than the shadow with 'wanted' sign was mine.
Date: 27 October 2007 (approx.)

Tools: Illustrator CS2, PC

*Picture(s) taken is from the search engine, and belong to their respective owner(s)
*The Associate Student Council logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership

Poster - Hoop Dreams II

2009-01-22T22:37:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College Student Activity Center (Charles H. Mitchell Activity Center). The purpose of this poster is to ask students to come and watch the game. I put the date and time as well as the location in the center of the poster to catch reader's attention, not to forget the FREE sign.
Date: 29 November 2007

Tools: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Mac

*Picture(s) taken is from the search engine, and belong to their respective owner(s)
*The College activities Board logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership Division

Poster - My Seattle Central Blog

2009-01-22T22:22:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership's blog. I made the layout looks like the web browser with the Central Blog opened in the middle. Green used to be the main theme of the blog as well. Bullets points indicate the benefits taken by visiting the blog.

Date: 7 March 2008

Tools: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Mac

*The address of the blog: www.myseattlecentral.com
*Picture taken is from the website, and belong to their respective owner
*The College activities Board Central Blog logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership Division

Brochure - Valentine's Day

2009-01-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

A brochure I designed for Seattle Central Community College's Student Leadership Event. My targeted student group were female students in the college that is why the brochure's theme is pink. Since there are a lot of international students in the college, I decided to draw Japanese comic style to attract that population.
Date: 11 February 2008

Tools: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Mac

*The Student Leadership logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership Division

Poster - Hoop Dreams I

2009-01-22T21:51:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College Student Activity Center (Charles H. Mitchell Activity Center). Since the title of the event is Hoop Dreams, Itried to make the poster looked dreamy by doing gradient for the background. I purposely made the image stands out more than the text.
Date: 26 November 2007

Tools: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Mac

*Picture(s) taken is from the search engine, and belong to their respective owner(s)
*The College activities Board logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership Division

Poster - China Blue

2009-01-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

A Poster I designed for Seattle Central Community College's film series events. I kept the information part simple, so that the reader can focus on the title, date, time, and location itself.
Date: 7 March 2008

Tools: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Mac

A great documentary film by Teddybearfilm
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/

*Picture taken is from the website, and belong to their respective owner
*The College activities Board logo belong to Seattle Central Community College Student Leadership Division