U.S.-based NGO helps poor students get better education

U.S.-based NGO helps poor students get better education

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

It is really ironic here that many children do not go to school
due to lack of funds or access. Yogyakarta has been renowned for
a long time as Kota Pelajar (the city of students), meaning that
many schools at all levels and students from throughout the
country are to be found here.

Many people, too, are still campaigning on how to develop and
widen access for children from the lower-income bracket to proper
education, at least a basic education, through foster parenting
approaches or scholarship programs. A nonprofit group, Global
Education Partnership (GEP), however, has stepped forward to
initiate real projects to address the issue.

The group tried to invite affected locals to seek solutions to
their problems.

The group GEP, better known locally as Mitra Pendidikan Global
(MPG), has been working since 1999 to encourage people to
voluntarily provide a significant financial contribution to poor
schools in remote areas of the province.

Surprisingly, it succeeded in doing so, regardless of the fact
that most of the people involved were from poor families.

The group has helped some 179 schools in the dry, barren
regency of Gunungkidul to receive aid from local communities.

Director of GEP's Indonesia Division Totok S. Wiryasaputra
said the key success of his organization in carrying out the
programs lay with the partnership model that it had been
applying.

Through the model, the group offers 50 percent of the total
funds it needs to finance an agreed program, and the local
community is required to collect the other half.

Totok said such a model had deliberately been selected to
create a sense of ownership among students' parents that would
hopefully, in turn, guarantee the continuation of the program.
That way, he said, the program would not exist only at the outset
but would be sustainable for further development in the future.

"We've learned so far that even poor people have the
capability to fund educational programs for their kids on their
own. What they need is simply a stimulus. The funds we have
offered in this instance are just such a stimulus," said Totok.

Educational expert Mochtar Buchori once expressed strong
support for the program, arguing that in this particular time of
crisis it was impossible to expect the government to meet all the
country's enormous educational expenses on its own.

The community, Mochtar once said, should contribute according
to its financial capability. That way, the country could
accelerate improvements to the quality of education and catch up
with other countries in the educational field.

"We have been very much left behind in the educational field.
Unless something is done about it, we shall always be the servant
of other countries," he said, reiterating the importance of
developing human resources rather than merely exploiting the
country's rich natural resources.

"Singapore and Korea have nothing, but they are much more
developed than we are because they have very good human
resources," he added.

Based in Washington DC, GEP operates in the U.S., Guatemala,
Tanzania, Kenya and Indonesia. The group is a humanitarian,
nonprofit, nonsectarian organization sponsored by the GE
Foundation, a social institution founded by the General Electric
Company.

It started its mission here in July 1999, following a
recommendation from the Ministry of National Education, and is
still in the process of registering itself with the State
Secretariat for official status as an international non-
government organization in Indonesia.

"For the first four years to 2003, we were operating only in
Gunungkidul. However, we have received requests from communities
inviting us to expand our operations in other regions. We are now
operating in the regencies of Sleman, Bantul and Kulonprogo, and
Yogyakarta municipality as well," Totok said.

It was to expand its area of operations that GEP also moved
its offices from Wonosari, Gunungkidul, to Jl. Beji 5,
Yogyakarta.

As the main sponsor, the GE Foundation provides annual funding
of US$ 75,000. Of the total operational funds that GEP spends, 20
percent usually comes from domestic donors.

GEP was established with as its main objective the provision
of assistance to poor youths and students to have better access
to education. The group also offers two main programs, an
Educational Resource Development Program (ERDP) and the Youth
Self-Reliance Training Program (YSTP).

The first is carried out through cooperation with schools and
communities while the second is aimed at providing the young from
poor families a chance to engage in training, internship and
courses.

Totok said, "Our vision is very simple. We want young people
from economically less fortunate families to have a chance to
become skilled and qualified workers so that they can improve the
quality of their lives."