University classes in Sumatra have been online for three semesters now. Most students returned to their home villages and many who don’t have computers are joining Zoom discussions and doing assignments on their cell phones. The pandemic has disproportionally affected education for the lower classes who have less access to technology and who may lack good internet signals in remote areas. Many students are becoming lazier and it is challenging for instructors to keep them motivated to be diligent in their studies.

Our SEEDS workers, who are teaching, look forward to being back in the classroom and to helping the students catch up to where they need to be academically.

After several months of delays due to COVID-19, the end of March saw the start of several pilot football projects in south Thailand. We had been planning and surveying with local partners to identify the neediest areas in which to launch the projects. We hope for good beginnings of these projects and practical impact amongst children and youth (7 to 12 years old) from at-risk communities. With new local coaches, SEEDS workers can slowly begin to implement value-based coaching as we seek to improve physical fitness and develop the skills & characters of the children and youth we work with. Moving forward, this will be the cornerstone of our community development focus through football in Songkhla province, and we hope to expand these projects step by step. This launch in Songkhla also coincided with the visit of the Thailand director of the organisation we are partnering with, to launch and expand the football projects in South Thailand. The visit was a helpful time to consult with the director and do some refresher training.  

Meanwhile, in Pattani province, there was bad flooding at the end of last year. Several families of children involved in the project were affected. After receiving funding, SEEDS workers and local coaches were able to distribute up to 20 relief packages to the worst affected families from the project. Although the flooding had passed already they were very appreciative for our support in a small way.

2020 was a year of tremendous disruption for the world, and Indonesia was no exception. The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in school closures and the cancellation of all in-person teacher training and mentoring for SEEDS partner Yayasan Tunas Aksara and the Saya Suka Membaca (I Love Reading) program.

As a result, the team turned its attention online, making a series of online videos that teachers can use as a reference for how to teach reading, and that parents and children can use to practice reading at home. The team started off using the cameras on their smartphones but quickly learned how to improve the quality of the picture, sound and presentation in the videos, eventually producing more than forty videos in 2020, and making them freely available via YouTube (see link below).

Since the start of the pandemic, the Saya Suka Membaca videos have been watched more than 11,000 times, helping teachers and parents to learn new techniques to teach their children to learn to read, and to love reading – the foundation of education.

The Yayasan Tunas Aksara team is looking forward to getting back into the field in 2021.

For more information visit www.sayasukamembaca.org

Having been able to provide emergency food aid to coastal villages in West Sumatra during 2020, SEEDS partner the Perahu Nusantara Foundation has been back in one of those villages training young men with business skills.

The training took place outdoors, observing local COVID protocols, and participants learned about book-keeping, business planning and how to identify business opportunities. They also explored together what aspects of character make an entrepreneur successful for the long term benefit of the wider community and not just themselves. As many of the villagers are employed in fishing, participants also learned about fish processing as a way to add value, especially when catches are high and the price of fish drops. 

As part of the training, participants were encouraged to design and build their own business. They chose a dried fish business and with a small grant from the Perahu Nusantara Foundation have started this business. Staff from the Perahu Nusantara Foundation will continue to mentor these young men to help their ideas and passion to translate into community transformation.

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.

In unprecedented times, finding opportunities in the difficulties can be a challenge. Together with Indonesian colleagues SEEDS workers in Jakarta have sought to review, respond and (re)create.

Certificate Time – This Participant’s face says it all!

Review: During Jakarta’s lockdown (March 2020) we reviewed the impact of a year’s involvement in two kindergartens. Primary focus: delivering two courses (Parenting & Nutrition) on a rotation basis. The Nutrition courses (x4) finished just before lockdown. When surveyed, 80% of participants reported reducing their consumption of instant noodles; over half reported reducing their children’s unhealthy snacks and increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Basic computer training for teachers, facilitation training for parent volunteers, and one-off events were also held.

Respond: The computer training (August 2019) was in response to requests from the kindergarten teachers. They were increasingly expected to use Microsoft/online platforms for school reporting, which was proving to be challenging. While some possessed more than a baseline knowledge, a significant number of them were complete novices. E.g. no email address.

Fast forward to 2020 and the world has gone virtual. Kindergartens are still closed and teaching is online. Teachers are finding this difficult; including how much it is costing them in ‘data’. – Think early days of pay-as-you-go mobiles.

Informal 1-1 support for some of the above has been given by an Indonesian colleague. The simple act of sharing how to navigate your phone’s menu to an internet plan/add-on can make a significant difference.

(Re)Create: In January 2021 we plan to deliver: teacher training, including how to creatively use platforms such as Zoom and Canva; a condensed Parenting course–potentially via whatsapp–with a new focus on home based learning; and more planned up until June.

In these difficult times, remaining responsive to ever-changing circumstances is a necessary skill both personally and professionally. As is the ability to find the opportunities that exist. SEEDS workers and partners are endeavouring to continue growing in these areas; while journeying with the communities we have the privilege of navigating these times with.

We also look to the new year in hopes of a new normal that is better for us all.

SEEDS has recently set up a partnership with Pahlawan University, signed a 5-year MOU, and will bring a Registered Respiratory Therapist and bioethicist from the United States as an education consultant for an initial two years. See this link for the virtual signing ceremony.
Click here.

The SEEDS consultant will co-lecture in the nursing program on respiratory topics and support a continuous improvement project for academic English among faculty and students. As he assists researchers proofreading manuscripts for international publication, and aids students and educators in applying for international fellowships and residencies, the SEEDS education consultant endeavors to further advance the university’s ascendant rankings, prestige, and visibility.

This collaborative effort represents SEEDS’ investment in the people of Riau through educational development. For more information about the partnership, click here.

With university classes now online, the focus for our SEEDS worker in Sumatra is getting students motivated to practice speaking English. It is too easy for them to not participate in a large online meeting, so other creative ideas are necessary. Breakout rooms help to give them smaller groups for interacting with each other and for practicing their speaking skills. Another social media app lets students make videos of themselves to which other students can respond. This becomes a virtual conversation as they make more videos to respond to comments from our worker or from other students.

Another new opportunity to help increase literacy is the community library that our worker has opened in a room in her house. Children and adults can come and read books in the library or they can borrow books to take home. Educational games are quite popular with the children. One of the most popular games is an alphabet puzzle which is usually the first thing that the children do when they arrive. One little girl who often comes to the library sometimes does the puzzle several times. There are plans for offering English lessons which has been a common request. Books for adults include topics on health, nutrition, pregnancy, economics, and on how to become a successful person. A newly pregnant neighbor was happy to find books that will help her in this new experience.

“Mr. David, when can we study again?” The lecturer’s request was quickly echoed by other members of the class WhatsApp group.  Covid 19-induced restrictions have indefinitely delayed the SEEDS education consultant’s return to Indonesia to resume teaching academic English to lecturers at a religious state university in Riau.  However, sparked by the lecturers’ eagerness to continue their learning, classes have been able to start up again virtually.  There are still challenges to the process – time zone differences require learning in the evening, and inconsistent network connections can lead to audio-visual distortions and the occasional dropout.  Despite these difficulties, lecturers have expressed appreciation for this opportunity to continue to develop a key skill for their profession.  In addition to language skills, program participants have also enjoyed the modeling of a participative online learning system, as evidenced by feedback following a recent class: “Wow, that was exciting!  The class time went by so fast!”   

Our global world has come to an abrupt halt end of March due to the Covid-19 pandemic. How is this affecting  SEEDS and its ongoing projects with partners in Southeast Asia? 

In South Sulawesi (Indonesia) our SEEDS university lecturer at the Department of Engineering of Hasanuddin University had to switch to virtual classes and engage with a learning process that goes beyond physical classroom meetings. It was the challenge to not simply upload handouts onto data storage servers or make available links to online training resources. Rather he was impelled to use new teaching methodologies and technologies that are more suited for this digital era. This is still a work in progress but accelerated through the current pandemic. Our SEEDS university lecturer created materials for projects that involved creative thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication (the 4 Cs or competencies of higher education). The students had to work on small projects while learning about the underlying theories and concepts. On a regular basis, our SEEDS worker and his students had so called virtual project meetings in which they discussed challenges that they faced and shared about progress that was made. At one time, a student was surprised as he solved a problem on his own. When he was praised for it by our SEEDS worker, the student wrote: “I don’t know how to reply … but I’m really thankful for the way you believed in me.”

This project-based teaching approach was not hindered even when our SEEDS worker had to return to Germany, his home country. The pandemic has since worsened and uncertainties on whether borders would keep open and allow travelling to other countries are growing. His children attended an international school in a neighboring country and the only way to reunite as a family was in their home country. The learning process with his students could continue by only adjusting the schedule according to the different time zones. As a positive side effect, the SEEDS university lecturer was given the chance to assess how successfully and independently co-lecturers are able to come alongside the students and facilitate the courses that he developed. 

The current pandemic not only affects ongoing partnerships. Our SEEDS worker in South Sulawesi has also been exploring new promising partnerships in the field of education. Two new workers from other Asian countries were in the recruitment process only to see borders closed and plans hampered. Indonesia is carefully controlling who is coming into its country in order to guard against increasing infections brought in from the outside. At the moment approval of new visas is mainly restricted to a limited list of larger scale national strategic projects. We however are staying in contact with our partners and friends in South Sulawesi and hope to hit the ground running once borders open again.