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‘Anak Garuda’ learn life skills to fly high
Olfarida Pode’u made her first life-determining choice when she decided to leave her home in Poso, Central Sulawesi, to enter an admission-free high school in Batu, East Java
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span>Olfarida Pode’u made her first life-determining choice when she decided to leave her home in Poso, Central Sulawesi, to enter an admission-free high school in Batu, East Java.
Olfa, as she was fondly called, made the decision on account of financial difficulties her family was facing after the passing of her father. She was a second grader at a junior high school at that time.
The school, called Selamat Pagi Indonesia (Good Morning Indonesia), had just been established that very year in 2007, and the unusual name coupled with the fact that it is free of charge, made Olfa’s relatives, especially from her father’s side, doubt its credibility.
“They believed my mother sold me off to become a domestic helper on Java and that nothing good was to be expected from a free school,” said Olfa in a recent interview with The Jakarta Post.
“But the school changed me into what I am now and my grandmother, who once disowned me, says I’m her most precious now. The aunt who said I would end up a domestic helper wanted me to help her enroll her child in the school,” she said.
Those eligible for the school are orphans or children from dysfunctional families of any ethnicity and religion, those who are easily branded as troubled kids by society with little access to higher education or a better future.
Although the school follows the national curriculum, the founder, businessman Julianto Eka Putra, added life skills and character development to the student’s assessment, and the high scorers are helped to develop their own businesses under the wing of Binar Group, the school’s patron company.
“Many of our first batches of graduates wished to stay with the school as they had nowhere else to go. It became a concern at the time so we initiated many business divisions that the graduates were in charge of,” said Bintang Listyonatal, the general manager of Binar Group, who was entrusted with handling the daily operation of the group’s latest subsidiary — production house Butterfly Pictures.
“Not all children excel in their academic assessment, but it is our responsibility to help them find and develop their talent and potential to become a successful person.”
The laboratory business units where students can learn life and entrepreneurial skills include a tour and travel agency, a hotel, a retail shop, merchandise production, food production, an agricultural farm and a multimedia division.
Olfa, now in her late 20s, currently leads the human capital division of the business group whose tasks include helping younger students to find their interests and to hone their skills while healing their past traumatic experience.
“I was 8 years old when the Poso communal conflicts [between Muslim and Christian communities] broke out and it was a traumatic experience. When I first got to the school and had to stay in a dorm with non-Christian schoolmates, I learned by-and-by that all religions are based on kindness and that differences make us stronger.”
She was one of the first seven young entrepreneurs groomed by the school — the Anak Garuda (Children of Garuda — the mythical golden eagle used as the national emblem) — who represented the success story of the school’s “experiental” learning, the term coined by Julianto, or Koh Jul as the staff and students called him, for the teaching method that allows students to learn from firsthand experience.
Their story was adapted into a movie titled Anak Garuda, which was released in theaters on Jan. 16. Directed by award-winning Faozan Rizal, the movie is the first production of Butterfly Pictures, which has been run by the the school’s graduates since December 2018.
The movie, however, is the second about the seven students. The first one, titled Say I Love You, was set during their school years and produced by another production house. The coming-of-age movie focused on how Koh Jul helped the students to go through their past trauma and conflicts among schoolmates.
“It was during the filming that a businessperson who happened to be at the site approached us and invested a lot of money to produce another movie about us with one requirement: We had to produce it on our own. Although none of us had experience in filmmaking, we just took on the challenge,” said Olfa.
In the new movie, which is based on a slice of their life journey in 2016, Olfa and her six friends — Robet, Wayan, Dila, Yohana, Sayidah and Sheren — are sent abroad to experience first hand all aspects that might help them to develop the school’s laboratory business units.
In a media visit to the Post to promote the movie, the cast said that during filmmaking they learned about leadership and how the differences in each character could actually make the seven a stronger team.
Although Selamat Pagi Indonesia high school is located in Batu, the hometown of Rebecca Klopper who plays Dila, the actress had never heard about the school until she got the offer to be in the movie.
“I hope the movie can help people to be more aware of the school, especially Indonesian children who dream of having an education and success in life, because everyone deserves a life transformation for the better.”
