Good afternoon, I am extremely happy to be here and very much appreciate this warm welcome. I can't imagine being received in a nicer way than I just had then.
I'm very happy to hear and be able to see that the Kecamatan Development Program that the World Bank has helped to develop has made such a difference in people's lives. I'm especially happy to hear that it has enabled children to study harder, read more and learn faster. Because the children are the future of this country -- the future of our world -- the more they are educated, the more they know and the more they'll be able to contribute to this village, community and this country in the future. I have to tell you honestly Pak Lurah, I'm not as enthusiastic about the television. But television can be a good thing, if it is used as a reward for children to study hard. My advice to all of you parents would be to say to your children "you don't get to watch television unless you've done your homework!"
And I'm also very pleased that in one of the places we stopped along the way to hear from some of the women on how this program has made it possible for them to no longer be shy about expressing their views in public. In fact the woman who said it, spoke so forcefully I couldn't believe that she had ever been shy. But I asked her friends, they said "yes she was," although I still couldn't believe it. And I think the very important part of this program is not just making lives better in a material way, but making lives better in a human way and spiritual way. And one of the things that I am very interested about in this program is that I hear that the decisions about how to spend the money are no longer made by some government officials off in Jakarta, or in some World Bank office back in Washington, but (they are) made by the people here themselves. So I think Bapak Lurah made a very good suggestion if one of you would be kurang malu (not embarrassed) enough to stand up in front of all these people and tell about how it is that you choose projects.
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