If you ever come to visit us (which we hope you will one day), you’ll find that time moves in mysterious ways at Merapi. It’s timeless in its landscape: the trees, the deep green valleys, the mist on the mountain, the warmth and friendliness of its people. And yet it’s a place where time moves rapidly: the hustle and bustle of the community, Village events, growing tourism, industriousness.
Sekolah Gunung Merapi wants to help keep the spirit of the community as strong as its always been. We also want to teach our students the skills they might need for the future. With this in mind, we have at last been able to fulfil our dream of providing free computing classes, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. A very big thank you to:
– Mas Zein for donating a laptop
– Sam from Books of the World and Mas Vian for the donation of the CPUs which are due for refurbishment and will be used as a permanent IT station in the library
– Neni, Adhy and others for their IT support
– Mbak Ida, an amazing Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII) student who is giving up time from her studies to support the school and give the IT classes
– Ibu Tari, a local teacher, for having the bravery and passion for learning to be our first ever IT student!
Ibu Tari, our first IT student and hopefully the first of many!
Merapi is not a computer per household community. For many, the school will be the only means of access to a computer. Whilst social media and mobile technology is accessed and understood by the younger members of the community, the school wants to make digital literacy available to all who want it. If you have a device you can donate or want to share your computer skills with our students, please get in touch on the e-mail below.
In other news this week, we’d like to extend a massive thanks to the scholarship students from UII for spending a weekend with us. Giving our children perfect examples of great team work, organisation and hard work, they were able to update and fix our water supply and extend the electrics into the toilets. It wasn’t all hard work though, we also had singing contents, team work painting and robots (see our video on Instagram: @SekolahGunungMerapi)!
Ice-breaking with students from the Excellent Community UII.
The Excellent Community UII team brief students on the final challenge: creating a painting through teamwork!
We’re pleased to see excellent engagement with our Ngopi&Sharing nights. These are our evening classes for adults where the structure and content of the classes are led by the students in a relaxed and informal environment. We now have 2 lively groups up and running. Our Monday class is attended by the Merapi Land Cruiser Community and the Toyota Land Cruiser Community. The class focuses on hospitality, working with international guests, developing conversational English and how to convey information about Merapi in English. Our second class is on a Thursday and is attended by high school and college graduates who are developing their English to work in the hospitality industry.
Guides from MLCC and TLCM Jeep Communities brush up their English skills and gain new ideas about tourism and hospitality in our Monday evening Ngopi&Sharing group.
Practising conversation and making new friends in our Thursday Ngopi&Sharing group.
We are looking for volunteers! If you’d like to be a part of our exciting and progressive little community and have a skill you’d like to share, please get in touch. We love welcoming new people, work collaboratively with our volunteers so that they can contribute according to their strengths and adopt all our volunteers well and truly into the SGM family, helping with accommodation, food, travel and integrating into the community.
Get in touch: [email protected].
