By I Komang Kurniawan | Chairman & Team Leader
In the last few months, all EBPP students have been busy with their school activities, and we are proud that all students who took the national examinations passed with good marks, giving all other students enthusiasm to continue their studies at a higher level.
In addition to academic subjects, they also have many extra-curricular classes, their favourite being EMpower Spark & Ignite lessons when all junior and senior high school students learn and discuss about traditional gender norms, gender equality, patriarchy, sexual harassment, school dropouts, early marriage and its effects. After six months of study, discussion, brainstorming and interviews with their community members, they held a campaign by organizing a presentation attended by the local community and some local government representatives from various offices. In the presentation, students presented the results of their campaigns to tackle the existing problems young people face, such as sexual harassment, dropping out of school due to marriage and gender equality. In addition, they also formulated school regulations on sexual harassment which are expected to reduce or even eliminate sexual harassment that occurs in schools. In this campaign, students used several media such as PowerPoint presentations, posters, videos and songs to deliver their messages to the public. All media campaigns came from themselves with a little help from the teachers. This media was also quite successful in conveying the messages; especially their own-written song entitled "Stop Harassment", which many people and children imitated after the presentation ended.
In addition to Spark & Ignite lessons, the junior and senior high school students also had their EMpower course, where the key topics for the last 4 months focused on Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, Internet, Career Orientation and Reproductive Health. The topic that most interested the students is the Career Orientation Program by making a field visit to a cashew factory (East Bali Cashew) and a Resort (East Bali Immersion) located at the northern side of their village. They were very enthusiastic about participating in all these activities, evidenced by 100% attendance and their many questions and discussions in the lessons after their visits.
In addition to their academic and EMpower classes, they were also preoccupied with the preparation for EBPP annual celebration of Indonesia's Independence Day which is celebrated on 17th August every year. This year’s celebrations were very lively, with 22 Pengalusan students performing the traditional Balinese dance: "Jangger collaboration" and 6 others presented traditional dance "Gopala". After that, they sang songs entitled: “The Pain of Evacuating our Homes (related to the 5 months of evacuation during Mount Agung eruptions)”, “Our Home” and “Thank You”, a special song written and composed by EBPP students and teacher collaboration to thank our wonderful donors, without whom they would not even be getting an education. Meanwhile, four Jatituhu students performed a traditional Balinese dance called “Puspanjali” and twelve students presented a song called “Indonesiaku (My Indonesia)”. In addition to the creativity arts activities, there are many physical competitions where several students from all 6 EBPP schools compete, such as tug-o-war, completing maps, coin hunt, etc. All these activities were very entertaining to the community, the students and the local audience of about 200-300 people.
On August 5th and 9th, another catastrophe struck. Earthquakes with RS magnitude 7.0 and 5.9 respectively, centred on the sea of Lombok! These had devastating impacts on the village of Ban. More than 350 houses and temples were damaged of which 133 houses were totally destroyed, 20 of which were in Jatituhu and 4 in Pengalusan. This incident saddened all of the Pengalusan and Jatituhu students whose houses were destroyed by the earthquake. To help the community, EBPP, once again conducted fundraising, to build temporary housing so that the community have a little comfortable place to stay until they get government assistance to build new homes. GlobalGiving kindly donated $5,000.
Although many natural disasters have occurred, the Pengalusan and Jatituhu students’ spirit of learning never faded; in fact they and their communities showed great resilience. They are very grateful to get help from all the donors, as learning and continuing school is a must for them. Thank you to all the Global Giving donors for helping us. Without your help these motivated children cannot continue their studies at school like now.
By David Booth MBE | Founder, Trustee & CEO
By Peny Rahmadhani | EBPP Education Team
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