Leuser Nature School, Sumatra

With all of Indonesia's schools closed until at least the end of May due to Covid-19, we want to bring you some happy stories and photos from the months prior to the lockdown.

In March, students from a junior high school based in another part of Sumatra visited Sekolah Alam Leuser for the second time. To entertain their guests, the students presented traditional dance performances. They also led them on tours of the school and adjacent permaculture and restoration projects and invited them to learn more about plant nurseries and maintenance, including growing rosella seedlings.

Though the school has limited sports facilities, the students enjoy being creative in practising sports skills. They use the office wall to practise table tennis, and make table tennis bats by recycling offcuts of wood.

Another creative activity the students enjoyed before the lockdown was cooking Javanese traditional food - Cenil and Lupis. The objective of this was to introduce students to various Indonesian traditional foods, so they will understand the richness of Indonesian culture through foods and carry on to preserve and share them in the future.

Thank you for continuing to support this project. The funds we're raising at the moment will help the school get back up and running, and keep providing high quality education for free, as soon as the lockdown ends.

Links:

• Read more about our work.

Many of the nature-based activities the children at Leuser School undertake are centred around plants, as the school shares a site with our permaculture demonstration centre and the Bukit Mas restoration site. The children recently helped to create a Medical Garden, contributing seedlings from their parents' gardens and helping to plant and maintain them. Now, each week, they devote some time to keeping the plants healthy and free of weeds, while learning from their conservation teacher about the benefits of traditional plant-based medicine for conditions ranging from nausea and headaches to skin conditions and fevers.

They have also been working on a flower garden in a semi-circular rockery outside their classroom. By scattering chrysanthemum seeds in various colours and planting lemongrass around the border, they've made their flower garden not only beautiful, but practical too - lemongrass helps to deter the mosquitoes which would otherwise gather in the shade around the classroom. 

Thank you for helping the Leuser Nature School and its pupils to thrive.

With best wishes,