SEEDS was already a global organization. Years before COVID-19 united the world’s attention on a single topic, SEEDS had already united people on every inhabited continent through the common thread of hope for Southeast Asia. SEEDS networked professional, educational, medical, and financial resources from diverse nations around the globe to Southeast Asia’s communities. While borders remain closed for COIVD-19 containment, some workers who would travel to Southeast Asia currently must wait in their countries of origin. However, the work of SEEDS goes on.

The Internet can connect SEEDS consultants with their communities of focus, no matter how far away they may be. Recently, a university in Indonesia evaluated more than thirty of its top faculty members for English proficiency, with the assistance of two SEEDS education consultants residing in Canada and the United States. From their own homes in North America, the consultants assessed university faculty by video conference at the Indonesian campus. This creative partnership between SEEDS and university workers transcended the challenge of distance. Without the consultants’ physical presence on campus, the language assessment still enabled the university to evaluate faculty needs in pursuit of excellence at English communication, discerning the strengths as well as areas in which to continue the journey of learning.

SEEDS recognizes the present and future value for Southeast Asian communities when institutions of higher education, and their individual educators, attain an international reputation for being among the best in their academic fields. The two consultants await their return to Indonesia, but in the interim period, SEEDS naturally surmounts the pandemic’s hurdles through its extensive experience in global work, sowing seeds of hope throughout Southeast Asia.