In 1998, thousands of people in a village of 19 isolated hamlets high up the steep and arid mountains of North-East Bali lived in abject poverty without roads, water, sanitation, adequate nutrition, health and education facilities, and hope. Children were the main victims:

• over 80% were malnourished and had goitre due to iodine deficiency;
• 70-100% were illiterate in the 1,000+ families highest up the mountains.

 Life had been this way for as long as they could remember.  Their dwellings, mostly single rooms with bamboo walls and dirt floors, are scattered over 7,000 hectares of land: isolated one from another.

Farming practices remained archaic: the only crops they knew that could adapt to the steep slopes and dry land are cassava and corn. Cassava unfortunately is a threat to health if is the staple, breaking down iodine and thus contributing to the high incidence of iodine deficiency disorders.