Educate and Empower 35 East Bali Mountain Children

All EBPP schools are still closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic but thanks to ourteachers’ creative solutions, all students continue learning effectively from their homes.

Primary school students are still learning offline with all teachers preparing the materials and delivering to their respective homes, joined by a local tutor, with question and answer sessions relating to the previous learning material, ensuring that teachers who monitor students always apply the Covid-19 health protocols. Life is difficult though for our young students, as recounted by 11 year old 5^th grade student Ni Luh A in Jatituhu, who doesthough remainpositive about her future:

Happy to help parents at home during the Covid-19 pandemic

“My name is Ni Luh A. I’m 11 years old and a fifth grade elementary student at EBPP Jatituhu School. Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak when EBPP schools had to close, my friends and I have to study at home.

I live with my father and brother as my mother died two years ago during the August 2018 Lombok earthquakes. Initially studying at home was a little difficult for me because I had no friends to discuss with because our house very far from other houses. Fortunately our teachers come every few days to deliver study material, when I can ask questions about the subject materials given earlier. Besides, studying at home, I also need to help my fatherwith domestic chores.

Every morning after waking up and cutting grass for the cows that my father and I keep, I have to find firewood to cook and help my father harvest chillies in the garden. The condition of our fields is very dry, steep and difficult to get water, and we can only grow food such as corn, cassava and beans during the rainy season!

Hopefully this Covid-19 virus will soon pass so that my friends andI can study again at school like before! I also thank EBPP and all donors who have helped especially in Education program. Without the help of EBPP, all students in Jatituhu hamlet could not continuing school. I hope to learn a lot at school so that later I can be successful and help my family to have a better life.”

Junior and senior high students 

Junior and senior high school students continue learning online through the WhatsApp groups,even though many having to trek very far to find an internet signal so they can receive online materials and communicate directly with the teachers for solutions to learning problems – any time of day though!

Four graduates to University

At the same time that the new school year started in July, four of our students who graduated high school in June - 2 from Pengalusan and 2 from Jatituhu - started their sponsored university education, with online introductory classes. The two from Pengalusan School studying Accounting and Culinary Cook, and the two from Jatituhu, majoring in Accounting and EducationCounselling respectively. To prepare them for this new and challenging university life, EBPP’s dedicated teachers prepared and delivered intensive computer and English courses, with individual guidance and mentoring, because they have never carried out activities like this before.

Monthly food, hygiene and sanitation supplies 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with the current dry season, all students and their families have difficulty sourcing suitable food supplies, but thanks to generousdonors,especially those who donated during our GlobalGiving July Bonus Day campaign, EBPP can continue providing monthly nutritious food packages of rice, green beans, cooking oil and dried fish for all students so that students can study in peace at home withfull nutrition intake, and ease the burden on their families during this pandemic. EBPP MUSTcontinue providing food aid – subject to sufficient donor funds – until December as the government has confirmed that schools cannot open before 2021!

In addition to food aid, we continue distributing hygiene and sanitation supplies to all students while educating on health protocols to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus and ensure that students are always healthy and can continue to learn well.

After eleven weeks of “learning at home” since our government instructed schools to close on 16th of March to prevent risks of infection during the COVID-19 pandemic, our students have adapted well to ‘distance learning’, although they often tell us they miss direct teacher interaction in the classroom and meeting their friends. But, learning independently with limited resources has been challenging!

High School Graduation Exams: As we’ve no internet or computer labs in our village, our 9th grade junior high and 12 grade senior high students took their final exam at home, with hard copies of the exam sheets delivered to their homes by the teachers, from 16th 20th March. Congratulation! The result of this exam will become as guidance mark fill out on their graduation certificate.

Our distance learning program is divided into two parts: completing the learning module assignments delivered by the teachers to each student; and the second is submitted assignment for marking by the teacher. But when students get confused and struggle with their assignments, they patiently wait for their teacher’s visit for help/guidance. However, these problems don’t lessen our dedicated students’ spirit!

Our elementary students’ home learning is monitored by their local tutors from each school. Luckily, they are able to learn in small groups, always though applying strict social distance and health protocols with the comprehensive sanitation/hygiene kits and masks EBPP provided. This learning method works well, as students can ask their tutor for help/guidance with any lessons they don’t understand.

WhatsApp Learning Groups and smartphones: To complement their hard copy class assignments, our junior and senior high school students created a WhatsApp group to communicate with their teachers and classmates remotely to discuss problems, ask teachers for clarifications, etc. For students who couldn’t afford smartphones, EBPP was able to buy the 16 phones needed through a $1,000 GlobalGiving ‘hardship grant’ and provide, on loan to these students!! Now, all EBPP students have fair and equal access to communications and “online” learning!

Creative art at home: Thanks to a generous art materials donation from Graeme Howell’s Worldwide Action NGO, all our students can eliminate their boredom by developing their creative arts. Guided by our Art Teacher, Pak Wayan, they enthusiastically make personal masterpieces, high school students focusing on comic and caricature drawings, with stories about how Covid-19 affects their life. They stick their masterpieces on their wall outside their house, so people seeing them will laugh and forgot their sorrows for a moment.

Nutritious food Supplements: To prevent the transmission of Covid-19 virus, students and their families cannot leave their village and most struggle to provide adequate daily meals. But thanks to a generous donation in April from a dedicated Indonesian supporter, EBPP was able to provide nutritious food packages for all our students’ families to help for one month, distributed to the students and their parents at their respective schools in early May. This helps students to maintain energy for distance learning. But we need your help to provide monthly, as long as learning from home continues.

Semester exams for intermediate years: As we reached the end of the 2nd semester academic year 2019-2020, our students took their tests, on schedule, at home from 18th 22nd May, flexibly and without time limitations. We’ll provide their results and report books in early June. Keep your spirits up EBPP students. May this situation end soon!

Thanks again dear GlobalGiving donors for your continued support for education.

Your urgent assistance is needed now to continue feeding our children each month until the COVID-19 lockdown ends. Please contact us for further information: david.booth@eastbalipovertyproject,org