TheJakartaPost
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Students spend weekends teaching computer skills to less-fortunate children
Through the Wave Foundation, students from Jakarta schools teach a free computer class to children from low-income families in West Cakung, East Jakarta.
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Students from several international schools in Jakarta spend their weekends teaching computer skills to children in the Cakung Barat low-cost apartment complex in East Jakarta. (courtesy of Wave Foundation/-)
W
hile other teens are hanging out in cafés and shopping malls, a group of students from several international high schools in Jakarta have decided to do something nobler with their spare time for the past several weeks.
Through the Wave Foundation, dozens of students from the Jakarta Intercultural School, the Singapore Intercultural School, the Raffles International Christian School and the Jubilee School, teach a free computer class for children from low-income families in the Cakung Barat low-cost apartments in East Jakarta.
Each Saturday, for the last seven weeks, about 20 students from the foundation teach about 20 children in the housing complex how to use Microsoft Word.
“We chose to teach the them Microsoft Word because mastering the program will be very useful for them in the future, from writing papers at school to doing office work,” Anita Gunawan, a senior from the Raffles International Christian School, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
President of the Wave Foundation, 17-year-old Brian Matthew Witarsa, said the volunteers had been doing this for three years in collaboration with the NGO Indonesia Care.
Brian said the volunteers had been teaching in the West Cakung apartment complex for three years, with each project lasting six to seven weeks. In the first year, they taught the children English, and for the last two years computer skills. He said they chose English and computer skills because mastering both was very important for the children’s future education and job prospects.
Anita said she chose to join the volunteer project for the last three years because she loved to see her students get excited when they learned something new.
