JAKARTA, 8 October 2018 – The beautifully-landscaped, Jack Nicklaus-designed Damai Indah Serpong Golf Course at the outskirt of Jakarta became especially lively on Sunday morning, 7 October, when the 4th ASEAN Golf Charity Tournament was held there.
The charity tournament was a joint initiative among the ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta Ambassador Golfers Association (JAGA), and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia. Members of the diplomatic community, business leaders, and friends of ASEAN, all joined hands for the good cause of contributing to the community through the funds raised from the event.
The first tournament was held in 2015, the year of the launch of the ASEAN Community. Proceedings of the tournament were donated to various foundations working across a wide spectrum of activities, e.g. building schools and improving education facilities in various locations across Indonesia, assisting children and peoples with disability, preserving the environment, helping victims of human trafficking, among others.
In subsequent years, due to the felt-need of the community, major portion of the funds collected were apportioned toward construction of urgently needed community and public facilities. These include “Diplomacy Bridge” (2016) in Garut which was completed, and construction of clean water facility (2017) in the remote, limitedly-accessible Napan village, East Nusa Tenggara, which is still ongoing.
This year was another hugely successful event, and funds from this year’s tournament are earmarked for reconstruction of a public facility in Lombok, which was severely damaged by a recent earthquake. Other recipients are St. Kanisius Panite Elementary School in West Timor, and the ASEAN Disability Forum.
Considering the situation in Palu and Donggala, Sulawesi, which were hard hit by earthquakes and tsunami not long after Lombok, extra funds were raised through auction during the event, and it led to another substantive amount of donations.
Secretary-General of ASEAN Dato Lim Jock Hoi and Indonesian Foreign Vice-Minister Dr. AM Fachir conveyed appreciations for the generosity of the corporations and all ASEAN friends, making the ASEAN’s spirit of “Care to Share” to come true and permeate to all segments of the society.
Co-Chairs of JAGA, Ambassador Tan Hung Seng, Permanent Representative of Singapore to ASEAN, and Ambassador Mayerfas, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, joined by Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN AKP Mochtan, presented the donations to the recipients, as well as trophies to winners of the tournament.
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