In partnership with SEEDS, local charity Yayasan Pendar Pagi runs a community centre in a densely populated inner-city area. One of the projects coming out of this has been a futsal training program for teenagers and young men that has been growing steadily for three years now. A challenge in poorer communities is a lack of constructive activities for young people to engage with, and many bored youngsters experiment with drugs and get involved in gangs. With constricted living spaces, narrow streets, and no communal facilities, many jump at the opportunity to use a futsal court nearby!

Recently one member of the team expressed interest in becoming a coach and was sponsored to attend relevant training. This young man has shown initiative in organising the others and partnering with a local worker to run the group.

This August SEEDs workers facilitated a visit by three football coaches from the UK for an intense two-day coaching opportunity and tournament. 60 participants joined the program run over the Independence Day (Freedom) weekend, including two teams made up from local players. The three visiting coaches brought specific skills and expertise that allowed them to give valuable input to the players, as well as enabling them to encourage and support the local coaches.

Through opportunities like these young people are gaining skills and receiving mentoring, a crucial part of their journey out of poverty. SEEDs workers in this area are supporting local workers to further develop the community centre programs and encourage the engagement of local community members.

Partnership and Health promotion

A few years ago the first contacts were made between SEEDS and a health care college. This health care college has a strong focus on community health care. Every year their students need to do an internship in a community that is underdeveloped. They develop a program that can improve the health situation in isolated villages.

SEEDS workers and local YPP employees have built a partnership with this health care college in the last 6 months.

There is a big need in the Riau villages for health promotion. There is a lack of knowledge about personal hygiene and other common diseases. By securing a partnership with the health care college, we were able to facilitate health promotion workshops. The students prepared materials and presentations to teach the adults and children in the village about personal hygiene and hypertension.

Around 70 villagers and 40 children attended the health promotion workshops. Many of them were able to get answers to specific questions and gained new knowledge. It’s encouraging to see how partnerships can benefit the community health program in the Riau villages. The people in the village gained new knowledge, the students gained more experience, and partnerships grew stronger.

Universities in Southeast Asia are under tremendous pressure to network and collaborate at an international level, and the state Islamic University in Riau, Indonesia (UIN SUSKA) is no exception. One critical component for UIN SUSKA becoming an institution with relevance beyond their immediate context is to have its lecturers be able to publish their academic research in international English-language journals. In late April Doug Evans, a SEEDS consultant currently working with UIN SUSKA, was able to help facilitate an academic writing retreat for lecturers from the campus who had been selected for the quality of their English language ability and commitment to the goal of publishing their research. Sequestered for 1 week at an island resort, participants learned about the foundations of academic writing in English and then put their learning into practice, sometimes working late into the evening on their journal articles. Doug spent many hours providing group and one-on-one consulting with the lecturers on their writing, as well as encouraging participants with their goal of publishing their research internationally. It was amazing to see how eager and motivated each participant was to grow and excel in their English writing skills! On the final day of the retreat, participants committed to submit their journal articles within several months of this activity, with regular meetings in the meantime to hold each one accountable to achieving this target. Doug looks forward to seeing how this investment will pay dividends for not only the lecturers involved but also UIN SUSKA as a whole in the time to come!

Last year new SEEDS workers began a number of small projects focused on Sports and English teaching in southern Thailand. Over the last 6 – 8 months we have been teaching English and running sports programs in local communities, schools and government institutions. We are only at stage 2 of these projects and we desire to grow both projects, but there have been some very interesting developments.

The sports projects have flourished and we are starting new projects in different schools and communities. Local people are enjoying these types of projects, as they love sport- especially football. We are able to make an impact amongst young males, who are often vulnerable to drugs or crime, through value based coaching and mentoring. The English projects however have failed to grow the way we expected. We have lost SEEDS workers and the institutions have changed the dates of the teacher training courses. We were scheduled to begin two teaching training projects by May, but both of these have fallen through – we often hear the Thai phrase “mai pen rai krap”,(meaning-No worries/No problem) from the officials. This has been very disappointing but it is the nature of establishing new projects.

We did recently however run an English camp for a number of rural schools that are under-resourced. Seeing how the children enjoyed participating in the camp and learning new skills made it all worthwhile.

In January the English Zone run by SEEDS’ partner charity Yayasan Pendar Pagi (YPP) received a group of seven Australian visitors, students from Melbourne and Sydney. Their visit left deep impressions at the English Zone community as one can hear now whenever Australian guests drop in: “Oh, you are from ‘Straya’!” they say, confidently.

It is of great value if the community at English Zone gets exposure to different kinds of English accents which are used around the world. It serves as an excellent preparation of members for possible participation in exchange programmes or study stints in English speaking countries.

Amongst the students from Melbourne was one Indonesian young woman who gave an inspiring presentation to the English Zone community about what it means to study abroad. She was able to share how initial repeated rejection in applications for scholarship study programmes abroad does not always mean the ‘end of a dream’. Perseverance is needed. Several English Zone members were encouraged by her experience.

Our SEEDS worker at the English Zone helps to facilitate presentations and visits like these in cooperation with the local English Zone Coordinator. For a balanced and meaningful culture exchange she is involved in familiarising visitors like these with the specific culture of this Indonesian region.
One exciting outcome of the “Strayan’s” visit is that the Indonesian young woman went away inspired herself to start up an English conversation community in her own Indonesian hometown.

That’s at the heart of SEEDS – bringing dynamic and community-changing people together!

The amount of Chinese investment in Indonesia has grown greatly in the past 10 years since the signing of the Free Trade Agreements between China and ASEAN leaders. In South Sulawesi, Indonesia, many Chinese-funded projects have started up. Top level universities in China now welcome foreign students and some offer scholarships. With the growing number of job openings, business opportunities and advanced study options it is apparent that learning the Chinese language can be an advantage in one’s effort to achieve success in life and ensure a prosperous future.

With this in mind, SEEDS initiated a partnership with Universitas Negeri Makassar (UNM) in Indonesia to provide Mandarin courses to students and graduates. UNM has a good reputation for nurturing young leaders especially in the areas of language and education. It also has experience in offering courses in foreign languages as well as Bahasa Indonesia for foreigners. With all these advantages UNM is a strategic place to start Mandarin courses. This partnership comes with a placement of a Chinese native speaker.

The first class started in June 2016. All students are young graduates. One of them is working in a mining business and he has to liaise with Chinese investors regularly, others are teachers and others are working in other sectors. They all have the desire to learn another language to be more competitive.  The courses equip students with understanding and speaking Mandarin, as well as reading and writing Chinese characters. The students expressed that Chinese is hard to learn but they are making progress fast!

SEEDs members in Bangkok continue to invest in local leaders and local initiatives that develop sports programs for young people. Recently a futsal league was held in partnership with a six-member local work team. Six neighborhoods competed in two age brackets, U12 and U15. During the two-month tournament, 30 action-packed matches took place using a single round-robin format. The neighborhoods alternated between home and away games. The league chose to use existing futsal pitches in the neighborhoods to make it easier for relatives and friends to attend, as well as to bring attention to the importance of investing in designated exercise/sports space in the community. The more a field gets used, the more it gets improved!

Two of the neighborhood teams that participated in the tournament this year had a history of conflict, so a SEEDs member helped mediate an agreement to start rebuilding a positive relationship. The coaches agreed on holding a few ice-breaker activities prior to the match, and to hold the match in a neutral location. In the end, the game was a great success and the relationship between the two teams improved.

Another highlight was the use of video and social media to promote each team, the tournament itself, and individual players who exemplified the tournament’s core values. The players were always proud to see themselves, their team, coach, and neighborhood on Facebook and YouTube.

The final round in the tournament was played at a common field so that government officials, religious leaders, and parents could all participate in the award ceremony. Some gave speeches, others helped hand out trophies, and still others posed with the youth for a large group photo.

Eye problems are a very common problem in the Riau villages where SEEDS workers are working alongside national nurses. Men and women work long hours in the field and their eyes are not protected against the sun. Roads are usually very dusty and the water is not very clean. These are all risks for potential eye irritation or damage. By giving health education we explain the risks of using dirty water and working in the full sun with eyes unprotected.

As people grow older their eyesight usually reduces. There are quite a few people who develop cataracts. One of these people is pak Ruslan. He wasn’t able to work for a few years because of his bad eyesight caused by cataracts. Pak Ruslan’s economic situation is not very good. He has been to the hospital previously but wasn’t able to pay for the surgery he needed for the cataract.

SEEDS was able to help Pak Ruslan to apply for the free health insurance scheme and to help him with some other administration that needed to be done before he could get the surgery. Then SEEDS helped him to get admitted and he was able to get the surgery. Six months later his eye sight has improved a lot and he is able to work on the land again, which helps to provide financially for his family.

Other people in the village are very encouraged that Pak Ruslan can see clearly again and is able to work again. So now other people in the village with cataracts feel braver to have their eyes checked and are willing to go through surgery in order to get better eyesight again

It’s not an easy job to distil five years of research about poverty in fishing communities into a ‘coffee table’ booklet! But that’s precisely what a SEEDS worker is trying to do. Although there has been considerable success publishing the research in high quality scientific journals, which gives the work credibility, most local decision makers and practitioners who are at the coal face of poverty reduction simply don’t have the time or the inclination to read such publications. This book project uses a different style to grab their attention, using powerful images that demonstrate both the challenges and the creativity that exist in coastal communities.

The book will lead the reader on a three stage journey, firstly exploring the needs and constraints that are keeping fishing families’ poor. What are those crucial factors that enable and inhibit their livelihoods? Secondly, evaluating the programs and the specific interventions that the government has used to empower the poor. Are they addressing those crucial factors we identified in stage one? Thirdly, assessing how future programs can be better targeted to the needs of the poor. What can we do better?

The book should be published later this year and will be used as a catalyst to galvanize both government and other stakeholders into action. It’s a delicate process of getting change agents on board without alienating people who have been working in poverty reduction for decades. Watch this space for another update in due course on how this research has been turned into a meaningful contribution for the poor!

Since the start of the AEC (Asian Economic Community) at the end of 2015 the students at the English Resource Centre in Pekanbaru, run by SEEDS employees, feel increased pressure to improve their English speaking skills.
It is Saturday night at 8pm. Small groups of students are found in all corners of the English Resource Centre: some are singing English songs, some are hanging-out in the TV-area watching an English program about wildlife while others surf the Internet, and a couple of students just have a chat – of course in English.
But don’t be deceived by this apparently leisurely scene: students at the English Resource Centre mean business, even if it is Saturday night! Soon most of them gather in a big circle in the library. Led by one of the student volunteers with more advanced English skills they are ready for another round of Public Speaking practice.
Public Speaking practice on Saturday nights started in 2011 out of the students’ desire to practise speaking in front of other people and increase their confidence to do so. The procedure is simple, but very effective and proves to be very popular. Anybody can join at any given level of English, no matter how confident. The main thing is willingness and determination to ‘just try’.
Each participant writes a word on a piece of paper which is then collected. Different roles are assigned: a timekeeper, a grammar checker, a vocabulary checker. Every participant gets the chance to do an impromptu speech for a maximum of three minutes based on their drawn word and then receive feedback about how to improve grammar and vocabulary. This flexible format means that students at all levels see improvement.
SEEDS employees encourage the students with more advanced English to sharpen both their English as well as their leadership skills through leading the Public Speaking sessions. They also join in the sessions themselves and support the student volunteers to facilitate this ongoing program.