Cerdas Literasi or Smart Literacy (formerly known as I Love Reading) is one of the programs of a SEEDS’ partner, Pendar Pagi Foundation (YPP). Smart Literacy aims to assist communities, elementary schools and kindergartens to cultivate a culture of reading in children. This program equips teaching staff with child-friendly and effective training methods and teaching materials, like colourful picture books. Teachers are then able to present the process of learning to read and write in stages, making it fun for the children through active involvement. The teaching curriculum used is called “I Like Reading” (known in Bahasa Indonesia as Saya Suka Membaca  or SSM), and comes with a guidebook for teachers, visual aids and culturally-relevant picture story books.

First, the Smart Literacy staff determined which nearby schools or kindergartens could be invited to become Smart Literacy partners. Initial investigation took place in the rural and semi-urban areas surrounding the city of Pekanbaru; these communities have limited access to new facilities or methods that support education. Compounding the challenge to teach literacy skills is that many village children speak local dialects in their homes, whilst at school the language of instruction is the national language of Bahasa Indonesia. The kindergarten currently partnering with YPP is Az-Zahra Kindergarten in Tanjung Kudu Village, Tambang District. Implementation of the Smart Literacy Program at Az-Zahra Kindergarten began by providing levelled training to teachers beginning in July 2023.

When the new school year started in August 2023, the Az-Zahra teachers began using the SSM teaching materials with their kindergarten students. Smart Literacy staff members conduct regular visits to monitor the implementation of SSM materials. It is clear to the staff members that the teachers and students are already benefiting from the use of the SSM materials being used in the daily instruction. Teachers are increasingly mastering the teaching techniques and materials, and enjoy the teaching and learning process. The children are enthusiastic about their literacy lessons, and actively engaging to learn letter shapes and sounds.

In Thailand, the hot season and school summer holidays are traditionally from mid-March to mid-May.
This year’s hot season was one of the hottest every experienced throughout Thailand, including the southern region. Children from families with middle to high income families often have the chance to travel or attend tuition classes during the summer holiday, whereas children from low-income families often are left at home to their own devices as parents and families need to work.

SEEDS consultants run summer football camps for children and youth from such families, with the main aim to provide fun sport activities during the summer holidays. The one-month camp was made available for free due to our partnership with a local stadium owner who wanted to help the children and youth in his community. During the camp we were able to implement value-based coaching for the children and youth we worked with. Most of the children and youth that joined in the camp were from low-income families and although challenging at times, it was a privilege to invest in the lives of these kids during the camp. One highlight was how positively the children and parents responded to the camp as they continued to ask us “this was so fun, when will it run again?”

SEEDS partner Yayasan Tunas Aksara (YTA) has partnered with local education departments and local business PT. Kalimantan Prima Persada (PT.KPP) to train more than 75 teachers from 12 schools in three provinces in Kalimantan as part of the ‘Kalimantan Loves Reading’ project.

This partnership, now in its second year, builds on a previous pilot program run in three local schools. Following promising test results for students taught with the Saya Suka Membaca compared to pupils in control schools for the pilot program, PT. KPP and local officials were keen to expand the program into new schools.

In addition to training by YTA trainers from Jakarta and Eastern Indonesia, the program includes provision for ongoing mentoring of teachers in their classrooms by Area Facilitators, who are trained to mentor teachers by YTA staff, before being supported remotely with regular online meetings and follow-up visits.

The expansion of ‘Kalimantan Loves Reading’ is an important step to improving literacy education in rural Kalimantan, where widespread poverty and limited infrastructure make access to good quality training and materials difficult. 

This three-way partnership between YTA, PT. KPP and the local government holds great promise as a model for future partnerships by making training, curriculum and reading books available to teachers in remote areas where financial resources are limited.

The slogan for the teacher training was “Literacy Brings Transformation. Mrs Mersiana, Class 2 teacher from SDN 005 Kaliorang, said “After receiving this training I’ve learned about using letter sounds to teach children to read… and several creative ways to teach reading so that children will be more motivated to learn to read, and come to read with fluency and understanding, and come to love reading.”

A PT.KPP site officer said, “We hope that after this training, we will be more effective in fighting illiteracy, and that progress will be faster.” 

You can get a taste of the training by watching the video below from PT. KPP (Indonesian language – English subtitles available).

The Perahu Nusantara Foundation is on a mission to build environmental awareness in coastal communities and to have fun at the same time!

Children’s youth clubs that teach environmental awareness are becoming a popular way of educating young people about the importance of protecting the planet. These clubs provide a platform for children to learn about various environmental issues that affect the world around them and encourage them to take action and make a difference in their community. These clubs also help to foster a sense of responsibility, encourage teamwork, develop leadership skills, and inspire creativity among young individuals. The Perahu Nusantara Foundation has been running youth clubs in two communities targeted at children aged 5-11. These provide a fun place to play and learn about caring for the natural environment. Local volunteers partner with Foundation staff to run these clubs and the Foundation has invitations to start the clubs in new communities.

Another initiative being undertaken by this charity is the sewing of reusable bags. In areas with terrible plastic waste, these reusable bags have the potential to not only reduce single-use plastics but also act as a powerful educational tool to encourage people not to throw waste into rivers or the sea. The reusable bags will work in tandem with the community youth clubs to mobilize young people to take care of their environment and challenge their parents to do the same. Indonesian cities face enormous environmental and social problems, so catalyzing a social movement of local people who care about their community and environment can help make a difference in creating a sustainable future for all.

One of my friends, who is a professor from the university, always complains that many of her students have low motivation in studying, and it’s difficult to get them to attend classes and hand in assessments.

However, one day I joined the Korean Day in the university and I was so impressed with how the students prepared all the booths by themselves to introduce Korean culture to others, such as Korean letters, traditional games and Korean dances. They even made Korean food by themselves to teach the participants more about Korean culture. The most surprising thing I witnessed was a group of students acting out a 30 mins Korean drama with very fluent Korean.

The university has had strong connections with university and institutions in the Republic of Korea since 1989. Korean language has been taught in South Thailand for more than 30 years. More students have chosen Korean language as their major in past few years because of the influences of K-pop. Many secondary students dance and sing K-pop during free time at school, so a native Korean teacher was so surprised that many of the Year 1 students could speak Korean already and knew more about K-pop culture than she did.

Usually, we plan what we want to do or want to teach the youth in the community, but we never listen to their needs and step into their world to find out what their interests are. When they find something that they really like and enjoy, they can spend most of their time learning and practise day by day. It reminds me that we need to listen to them before planning our actions.

SEEDS partner, Pendar Pagi, is committed to seeing the skills and expertise of volunteers and staff used to empower the realisation of SEEDS’s goals in their local community. With the recent addition of a Physio and Occupational Therapist to the task force, market research has begun in relation to home therapy services. Anecdotes of neighbours and friends indicates that families struggle to care for loved ones upon discharge from hospital or after adverse health events. The patients also struggle to realise their full recovery potential due to limited rehabilitation services. Providing in-home rehabilitation services is something that both our therapists are familiar with from their work experience in Australia, and are eager to apply their knowledge in this new context.

This initiative will aid not only the patient, but also their support network, by educating carers about safe manual handling techniques and training them to facilitate rehabilitation exercises with their loved ones. Home therapy is designed to increase the independence of the patient, which in turn helps alleviate the burden of care on the family. Within their home environment, the patient’s needs can be assessed and therapy services can be targeted to facilitate re-engagement in everyday activities.

Beyond providing the necessary therapy to assist patients with their rehabilitation, there is the opportunity to reduce the burden on the health system by educating patients and their families regarding lifestyle and preventable factors that contribute to disease and mortality such as smoking, diet and exercise.

Currently, our therapists are still in the process of meeting SEEDS language requirements. However, there have been opportunities for them to voluntarily meet with stroke survivors, alongside their language helpers, to assist with the stroke patients’ rehabilitation as well as further their language learning. One such gentleman lives in a village forty minutes from Pekanbaru. The opportunity to visit this young man has greatly enhanced the therapists’ medical terminology and provided him with appropriate exercises for rehabilitation. Since their visits, the young man has begun dressing and showering independently. This has lowered his care needs and increased his sense of self-efficacy. Our hope is that this service will be made available to a much larger community of people following continued market research and the establishment of this new initiative.

With just a balloon, recyclables, straws, and wooden skewers, can you build an air-powered car that can travel at least two meters? 

This was a recent design challenge given to a group of students at a STEM day camp in Bangkok.  After exploring physics principles through hands-on activities, the students were given these materials plus a hot glue gun, tape, paper, and pencil.  Each team designed, tested, and improved their vehicle until it could meet the challenge.

SEEDS members in Thailand recently hosted several science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) day camps like this one in low-income and underprivileged segments of the city as a means to inspire youth from these backgrounds toward STEM career opportunities.  

Students learned by exploring, investigating, and asking questions related to an interesting topic or real-world problem.  Next they worked in teams to develop something, test it, improve it, and present it to an audience.   

The participants of the club gained confidence, teamwork skills, and opportunities they would not have had otherwise.  It also increased their motivation to study the STEM subjects in school with more intentionality and enthusiasm.  These outcomes will in turn contribute toward future economic benefits for them and their families, in line with SEEDS objectives.

There is no doubt that the current generation of young people has a global perspective. Among them Generation Z who are finishing higher education and starting to enter the market place with its enthusiasm, idealism and new ideas to make a meaningful contribution in this global world.

One of our SEEDS educational consultants works in partnership with the Hasanuddin University in Makassar (Indonesia) where he comes alongside students and hopes to not only equip them in terms of expertise and knowledge but also in terms of getting ready for the global challenges of our days.

Recently our SEEDS educational consultant hosted two Master students from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany for a two-month long voluntary internship placement. They both received a warm and enthusiastic welcome from lecturers and students of their respective departments and soon started to work on the projects that were assigned to them.

The purpose was to provide an exchange of thoughts and expertise in a cross-cultural setting for both the German students and the Indonesian student body of the technical faculty. Besides interactions on campus, they also went together camping in the mountains or visiting a secluded island. It has provided worthwhile opportunities to grow in mutual understanding as they shared their dreams and perspectives on life. Far from being exhaustive, these cross-cultural encounters will help the movers and leaders of tomorrow to tackle growing global concerns in appreciation of each other’s cultural roots.

As a side-effect, our SEEDS consultant- who works as a lecturer at the Department of Electrical Engineering-was also able to update his knowledge in newer platform technologies for “Embedded Systems”. One of the two German students, who was about to graduate from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany) in the fields of mechatronics, helped by transferring a research project to a FPGA-System-On-Chip platform. This will give a push for enlarging the scope of research projects and investigating additional concepts.

Helping the children have dreams is one of my prime motivations in preparing some fun and active English learning activities for them. One of the children’s unspoken dreams is to help uplift the economic status of their families. Getting an education is just one of many steps towards getting a better job and realizing their dreams. So, we encourage them to communicate well in English, and let them feel that learning is fun.

Since May 2022, we have been offering an English program every Saturday in one community. Many children came from different grade levels. We group them together at the start of the class, sing songs and play games related to the lesson, then separate them into three groups according to their age. I handle the younger kids around kindergarten. Another SEEDS volunteer works with the older kids in grades five and six. Another volunteer helps the middle-aged kids. They enjoy it so much-especially the singing part-that they keep coming back,. One time, when we arrived at the house where we taught them, they started greeting us with a song. They sing the goodbye song as they leave while waiting for us outside the house so they can say goodbye more. After a few months, religious classes began in the community. Some of the kids were not able to come to the English program anymore due to a conflicting time schedule. However, a sizable number of them were able to attend.

Among the kids that have kept coming, two are able to read and write, so we prepare a conversation lesson for them. Sometimes, we let these two kids act as teachers and help other kids. In this way, they might be encouraged to become teachers in the future. Seeing them learning and enjoying motivates me to do more for them.

One of SEEDS’ goals is to partner with educational institutions to help develop students who will later become community leaders that work to uplift their surrounding communities.  One of our SEEDS educators, Joshua Pong, was asked to speak at an educational conference held by the International Program of Science Education at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia in Bandung.   

Joshua spoke on the primary concepts behind qualitative research as well as its importance to educational research as a whole.  Put simply, quantitative research only indicates a relationship between two things but rarely explains why the relationship under examination does or does not exist.  Qualitative research is a wonderful tool to help explain the why of quantitative research.  It also makes for good storytelling.

The 1.5 hours were filled with emotional stories that helped the students understand research subjects as individuals.  Post-story group discussions focused on finding themes within the stories and discussing what could be learned from each.  They also practiced a bit of their own qualitative research thinking about why there are so many more male rideshare drivers than female rideshare drivers.  A good time was had by most (if not all) and the time was soon over.

We hope that, going forward, this new body of undergraduate education researchers will look to understand the “whys” of their research results as they seek to improve the world of Indonesian education.