Monday saw our weekly Ngopi&Sharing (a vibrant, interactive meeting over coffee) evening with our brilliant adult students. An informal and engaging learning environment with learning content which fits our students is essential to what we are trying to do at SGM; we believe in providing relevant and user focused teaching.
This week’s class focused on two local museums (the exhibits for which cover complex historical issues) and developing local guides’ vocabulary and English language skills with which they can convey the amazing tapestry of this area’s heritage. We also talked about disaster mitigation and what guides could do in the event of small but sudden volcanic activity. Little did we know how crucial our discussion would become in the light of the incredible and devastating events in Mexico. SGM intends to be actively involved in engaging local guides and the community in developing strategies to ensure that the tourist experience for Merapi is both wonderful but organised! and that contingency plans are in place so that visitor safety is paramount and safe, whenever possible. We look forward to continuing our research in this area and hope to learn from those in our community who have an inherent understanding of the area and terrain.
If you’re reading this and are local to the area, get involved! Everyone is welcome with open arms.
Ngopi&Sharing, on Monday night: sharing experiences about the mini-museum.
Our library continues to be successful and we can happily mark our 600th book loan. One step closer to our 1000th! We’re collecting information about our readers’ favourite books and have just started taking book requests. We hope that you’ve had that magical moment where a book tells you more about yourself than you ever knew or opens a door to some other fantastic world which enriches your life. If you’d like to share that experience with someone by donating, get in touch via the e-mail below. All of our book donations are credited so that our readers know exactly where the generosity has come from.
Our newest English students at SGM, who inspite of the national holiday still wanted to come to class.
A big welcome and enormous thank you to Ida, Iis, Ika and Izzah from UII for joining our SGM community and for sharing their time and skills with our students on a regular basis. We couldn’t help our students without the generosity of our volunteers so THANK YOU. Send us an e-mail if you’d like to join our family – a day, a week or whatever time you can spare, we’d be happy to welcome you.
Warming up: our performing arts students get ready for the next physical improvisation task.
We’ve been gratified (to be honest, thrilled) to see that in spite of the national holiday for the Islamic New Year, that our students and volunteers have chosen to spend their free day with SGM! We can’t stress what incredible energy our performing art teachers, Abi and Endah, bring to our school and they did not disappoint with their amazing class this week which focused on role play, imagination and physical theatre. From seeing student responses, we know that by harnessing engagement with education in this way, ignition will lead to a spark and beyond and our students will develop a love of learning and knowledge which will grow and grow.
Thank you for reading and for following our journey. This is going to be a regular post so why not diarise our Friday post to check in on us? We are always open to new ideas and to visitors. Get in touch! [email protected].
Lots of love, the SGM team. x
