Exclusive school reaches out to poorer neighbors
Exclusive school reaches out to poorer neighbors
Tantri Yuliandini
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
"It looks really nice, I wish our library could be repainted,
too," pony-tailed Wulan, 8, whispered to her friends as they
watched the repainting of State Elementary School No. 12 Petang's
library in Grogol Selatan subdistrict, South Jakarta, on
Saturday.
The repainting -- carried out by teachers and staff of the
nearby exclusive National Plus Bina Nusantara (Binus) School --
was part of the Binus middle and high schools' community service
program.
The school's community and social services coordinator, Vivi
Trenggono, said that the Binus middle and high schools had
adopted School No. 12 Petang as their sister school in 2004. This
was followed by the Binus elementary school adopting State
Elementary School No. 8 Pagi, located on the same premises as the
Petang school. Wulan us a student of School No. 8 Pagi.
"The easy walking distance between Binus and the state schools
makes them ideal for our students to visit, as well as for our
community programs," Vivi told The Jakarta Post.
Since 2004, Binus being organizing various activities for both
its own students and the students of the state schools, and also
the teachers and staff of both schools.
"We have an annual program whereby our middle and high school
students share their knowledge with their younger brothers and
sisters in the state school," Vivi said, explaining that she was
delighted with the responses from both the Binus and state school
students.
Binus has also organized futsal matches between the elementary
schools and organized a poetry competition to mark Kartini Day.
"We ask the winner to read out the winning poem in front of
our school, and this allows our students to see that the students
of the state schools are equally bright," Vivi explained.
She said that she hoped the repainting of the library would be
the first step towards other improvements in the state school's
facilities.
"What we want is to increase the awareness of students here
about library use, and we want our students to share their
knowledge of how to use a library with them," Vivi said.
A teacher from School No. 12 Petang, Uus Sarip Hidayat, said
that the library previously had some 400 titles, but that this
figure had recently increased by 200 books donated by Binus last
month.
"The books are now being cataloged by our library staff and
will soon be added to the main collection," he said.