Frequently asked questions
The list below is drawn from the questions we get from schools, government offices, parents and prospective funders. Every answer can be checked against something else on this site.
- Is the foundation serving meals yet?
Not yet. No kitchen has been built and no meals are being served. The foundation is establishing its first school kitchen.
The sequence of stages we are working through, including the ones that are not yet finished, is published on the programme page.
- Where will it be?
The site has not been decided. The school survey is complete, 48 state schools across three sub districts of Kabupaten Sumba Timur, and it has produced a recommendation: on this evidence Pahunga Lodu is the strongest candidate of the three. A recommendation is not a selection.
Two findings put it first. Its modelled catchment of 2,400 to 2,600 children is the only one of the three at the scale of the 3,000 portion a day kitchen our cost model is built on, and 9 of the 10 schools inside its service radius have confirmed grid electricity, where power is the least settled part of the capital estimate. Kahaungu Eti has the largest separation from existing kitchens, so on unmet need alone its case is the strongest, and it is not the one we recommend only because the objective is a full scale kitchen that is viable to run rather than the greatest distance from an existing one. Two things would change the recommendation: a field visit that finds no suitable building or no school willing to take part, and the three schools whose registry coordinates are missing or unusable turning out to sit outside the service radius, which would pull the modelled catchment down. The comparison in full is on the evidence and data page.
The siting decision is scheduled for September 2026. No school has been approached, no school has agreed to take part, no field visit has taken place, and nothing has been promised to anyone. We are also reviewing Kabupaten Sumba Barat Daya, which has a far higher population density.
- Why does the location of the kitchen matter?
Because time is the hardest part to control. Food safety guidance places cooked food held below 60°C for more than two hours in the risk phase, and that is why the government standard uses a service radius at all.
The kitchen we plan will be a central kitchen for several schools, in the way the national programme’s own units are. No kitchen has been built and no site has been decided. Siting that kitchen inside the six kilometre radius is what will keep the interval between cooking and eating inside the safe window, and it is the measure our siting analysis is built on.
- Is the foundation part of the national free meals programme?
No. The foundation is not part of any government programme, does not represent any government body, and holds no designation from any agency.
The Makan Bergizi Gratis programme is mentioned on this site only as context about the state of coverage, never as a partnership.
- What does a meal cost?
The estimated operating cost is Rp 15.250 per portion, about US$0.94, at a design capacity of 3,000 portions a day over around 200 school days. That figure is operating cost only and excludes the capital cost of building the kitchen.
Capital cost is published separately, as ranges, and is never combined with operating cost into a single figure. The detail is on the programme page.
- Who funds this, and who issues the receipts?
Funding for the Sumba school meals programme is raised and receipted by EffortX Foundation Ltd (Australia), the foundation’s funding partner, not by the yayasan.
Funds are released to the yayasan in stages. The first release is made when the project reaches its funding goal. Evidence for each stage unlocks the next release.
- What is the tax position for donors?
Donations received by EffortX Foundation Ltd (Australia) are tax-deductible in Australia for Australian taxpayers. The yayasan itself does not issue Australian tax receipts.
Contributions toward meal costs are not deductible from gross income under PP 93/2010 and PMK 114 of 2025. Corporate donors should take their own tax advice.
- How does the foundation protect children?
A Protection from Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment Policy and a Child Image and Story Policy were adopted by the Board on 7 August 2026, and both bind the foundation and all of its staff and volunteers.
Police clearance will be required for anyone with foreseeable contact with children, before field activity begins.
In field activity, no child’s data and no child’s image will be collected without written consent from a parent or guardian, under Law No. 27 of 2022 on Personal Data Protection. That consent form is not finished.
The route for raising a concern about child safety is set out on the about page and goes to a member of the foundation’s Pengawas (supervisory) organ.
- Our school would like to take part. How?
Please write to us with the name of the school and its sub district. We should say plainly that the site has not been decided and the foundation will build only one kitchen, so we cannot promise anything to any school at this stage.
We have published a siting recommendation, and the sub district we recommend is Pahunga Lodu, but a recommendation is not a selection. The decision is not made until September 2026, no school has been approached, and being inside or outside that sub district gives no school any priority, any certainty or any promise from us.
We record every enquiry from a school or a government office, and those enquiries feed into the siting decision.
- How can I check the foundation is properly registered?
The legal identity table on the about page carries the legal name, the deed number and date, the notary’s name, the transaction number on the Ministry of Law registry, the tax number, the business identification number, the seat, the initial assets and the founder, with the source document named on each row.
The Ministry of Law approval number, the Foundation register number and the date approved are all on the about page, alongside the registry transaction number that can be matched directly against the Ministry of Law record. All three were matched against the primary documents after we received them on 9 August 2026.