Meet each other
Learn and Share



Direct interaction with other people with different cultures definitely provides new experiences and learning for each party about the diversity in Indonesia with regional promotion in local context. It is what prompts Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta to give student activist of Stube a chance to visit Sumba, one of islands in East Nusa Tenggara. Three students were dare to accept the challenge, who were they?

First, Dominggus Urkora, a student of Theology at STAK Marturia Yogyakarta, originated from Dobo, Southeast Maluku. Domi was sent to Sumba and staying precisely in Kanjonga Bakul village, Nggaha Ori Angu, East Sumba between 17 June to 17 July 2017 by conducting activities related to Sunday School in GKS Kanjonga Bakul.


His first activity was collecting the biodata of GKS Kanjonga Bakul Sunday school children from five groups covering Kanjonga Bakul, Horani, Kalu, Walakiri and Bidiwai. Next, motivating new teachers to serve Sunday school, and then watching movies for children. During his interaction in the field, Domi found that some elementary school children were not able to read yet, so he was driven to hold activities on literacy assistance. Actually, it was not an easy activity as he had to pass the rocky path to reach the villages, however Domi was happy when the boys called out his name as they passed across on the path.





Second, Nova Yulanda Putri Sipahutar, an alumnus of Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, coming from North Sumatra held an assistance for early childhood education of Nasareth, Tanggamadita, East Sumba. This early childhood education was established in 2014 and registered in the East Sumba Education Office in 2016. However, the activity was still conducted at a room of Posyandu Tanggamadita, because it didn’t have its own building. So far, there were 18 students registered until July 2017.

In the same place, Nova held English classes for elementary, junior and senior high school students. Because participants have to draw water and collect firewood for their home needs, or also along with school daytime schedules, they often came late. However, they were eager to learn several topics, such as alphabet in English, family, basic introduction, subject, to be, object, and  possesion. The results appeared when they were dare to perform short English conversations, mentioning vocabularies and writing sentences according to English sentence structures.

Student Reading Group was also a concern of Nova. There were five female students who joined, namely Betriks Lay, Elisabeth Bangi Lida, Yustiwati, Onira Tangga Nalu and Melianti Betsdwi. The name of this group was Anala'du, meaning the sun symbolizing a woman, because the books they read are about women with women perspective, such as Tabula Rasa, Gadis Pantai, Go To Set A Watchman, Entrok, and Memang Jodoh. The group agreed that each member is a facilitator and discussion participants. In each discussion, the facilitator provided a resume and analysis of the book in Sumba context and continued by questions and answers.


Third, Redy Hartanto, a theology student of STAK Marturia Yogyakarta from Lampung had an idea to teach the Sunday school creatively by utilizing the surrounding local objects. On 15 July 2017-12 August 2017 he was in Sumba, precisely at GKS Laihau, LewaeTidas, East Sumba.


He used banana leaves as children's activity and plastic straws as teaching aid on particular topics. In addition, he also listed Sunday school children, motivated teenagers to become a Sunday school teacher, held movie for children and held a competition for Sunday school children. Redy was sick on his first day arrival, but eventually he got his strength and succeeded in motivating four young people to take part in Sunday school service at GKS Laihau.




Although it seems simple activities, but it answers the local need, so it is very useful and bringing impacts for the community. So, young students do not just dwell in campus, but complete your life story with various adventures of interacting with communities and their dynamics. (TRU).


Comments