A Helping Hand

High school students in Jakarta are pioneering efforts to help disadvantaged children get an education.

On a boiling hot Monday afternoon, volunteer teacher Widyanti Nursaid, better known as Wiwid, dismisses a class of 26 children from Kampung Bulakan.

The village is only about 20 minutes from the sprawling campus of the British International School (BIS) in Bintaro, South Jakarta, but in many ways, it is a world away.

Yet its makeshift school, aptly named Sekolah Bisa!, owes its existence to BIS students.

It has been about six months since Sekolah Bisa! opened its doors – so to speak. In fact, the school has no doors or walls; it looks more like a playground than a classroom, with climbing structures, reading “holes” and a stage-like presence. But that does not detract from its aim – to provide a free education to disadvantaged children from Kampung Bulakan.

Lessons are held daily on a small patch of land overlooking the green hills of Bintaro, next to a tall office building that houses the Body Shop corporation, which donated the land.

Gina Graham, in her final year of school at BIS, is the Sekolah Bisa! group coordinator.

“We didn’t realize until later that the Indonesian name of the school is grammatically incorrect,” says Graham. “But we decided to stick with it anyway.”

Creative Action

The idea for Sekolah Bisa! originated with Adrian Thirkell, the BIS student activity adviser. Thirkell was not available for comment, but Graham spoke of his well-known commitment to using education to improve the quality of life of village children and of the way his passion to help inspires BIS students involved in CAS (Creative Action Service) activities.

“CAS is basically geared toward contributing your time and effort for a greater cause,” says Graham. “And it can be as simple as painting a wall or as complex as running a school. I think Sekolah Bisa! is the first school in the region, if not the world, that is run entirely by CAS members.”

The day the WEEKENDER visited was milk day, which means each student can take home a bottle of milk, provided by the school board. But like the school, this isn’t a typical school board.

The Sekolah Bisa! school board consists of BIS students, who oversee the school’s curriculum and design. Under the supervision of Thirkell and advisers at BIS, Graham and her friends actively monitor the development of the Sekolah Bisa! students, aged between 6 and 16, and collaborate with volunteers on the best way to educate them.

The current curriculum focuses on fundamental subjects: reading, writing, arithmetic and drawing. Graham wants to include English, but she feels it would be too soon for the children to take on such a complex subject. The school also encourages an environmentally friendly approach.

“We try not to use plastics and we specifically designed the school to be surrounded by trees, plants and greenery,” says Graham. “It’s quite a challenge to make them understand why certain things which they find normal are rather harmful to the environment.”

Learning to Learn

For Wiwid, a bigger challenge is changing the children’s attitudes.

“The greatest challenge is to change the way these children view life,” says Wiwid, who has been volunteering since the school opened and is in charge of the day’s lessons.

“So I have to start by teaching them what it means to be a person of character. I tell them – constantly – that even though they are poor, they should never have the mentality of a beggar. They need to work and try hard, because that is the only way they can get out of their present living conditions.”

Easier said than done, of course.

“There is only so much you can do to try and change these children’s lives for the better,” says Graham, who is interested in studying community development in college. “But we believe that with the right steering and attitude, we can somehow give them the idea that they can do better and they will be better.”

Every now and again, Wiwid says, she and Thirkell visit Kampung Bulakan to meet the parents and monitor the students’ progress and behavior at home. Mostly, the parents are grateful that they can send their children to school for free, and that the people running the school care enough to listen to their woes about the hardship of living in the slums.

Nevertheless, some parents choose not to get involved in their children’s education.

“We’re taking it one step at a time,” Wiwid adds. “Nothing good happens overnight – and the important thing is that we’re here, we have the facility and we want to help. Everything else is a process.”

Many Hands

Sekolah Bisa! receives support from several organizations, institutions and companies, in the form of scholarships, donated goods, volunteer programs or operational funds. Parents and teachers at BIS are also supportive of the students’ efforts to reach out to disadvantaged children.

“We’re very proud of our daughter for doing this,” says Michelle Somerville, Gina Graham’s mother. “She works hard to make this a success – and I think she’s doing a terrific job.”

Australian-born Graham is no stranger to multiculturalism, and she is comfortable discussing serious issues with local volunteers. She has thrown herself into the role of group coordinator with all the energy that youth and passion provide.

Does the hard work pay off?

“Oh, absolutely,” says Graham. “To watch these children adopt the school as their second home and to see the changes in the way they behave is something that is very rewarding for all of us.”

Although she is graduating next year, Graham says Sekolah Bisa! will continue to run under Thirkell’s leadership. For now, however, she hopes to dedicate what time she has left at BIS to creating a positive change in the world – one student at a time.  

For more information, contact Sekolah Bisa! on Facebook.

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