Help Build a School for Underprivileged Children

Across rural Indonesia, generations grow with resilience, determination, and untapped potential. Yet too often, their opportunities are shaped not by their talent—but by limited access to quality education, structured training, and economic pathways.

Empowering rural generations means breaking this pattern.

It means ensuring that children and youth in villages receive the same foundation of knowledge, skills, and confidence as their urban peers. It means transforming education from a privilege into a right that reaches even the most underserved communities.

At Punthuk Sewu Learning Center, we have witnessed how support changes trajectories. When students receive consistent tutoring, character guidance, and exposure to practical skills, their confidence rises. Their academic performance improves. Their aspirations grow.

But empowerment requires more than short-term assistance.

It requires structured, formal education that provides:

• Recognized qualifications

• Market-relevant vocational skills

• Strong foundations in STEM

• Leadership and soft skills

• A nurturing and disciplined learning environment

That is why we are working to transform our learning center into a formal vocational school—integrating junior secondary education with hands-on training in agribusiness and sustainable livelihoods.

Our goal is not simply to educate individuals.
Our goal is to empower generations.

When one student gains skills and credentials, a family gains stability.
When a family rises, a community strengthens.
When communities strengthen, rural regions thrive.

Empowering rural generations is about creating long-term pathways out of poverty. It is about dignity, resilience, and opportunity rooted in local potential.

The future of Indonesia does not depend only on its cities.
It depends on whether its villages are empowered to grow.

And that work begins with education.

Since 2023, Punthuk Sewu Learning Center has provided informal education to bridge the academic gaps faced by underprivileged children and youth in Bantul, Yogyakarta. What began as a grassroots initiative has grown into a structured community effort to ensure that children from low-income and vulnerable households are not left behind in their educational journey.

Our focus has always been clear: to serve those with limited access to quality schooling and provide them with the tools needed to succeed—both within formal education and beyond it.

Currently, we serve more than 50 students through a holistic, impact-driven approach that integrates academic strengthening, character formation, and practical skill development:

• Academic Support: Targeted tutoring in Mathematics and English to strengthen formal school performance and close learning gaps.

• Character Building: Islamic education emphasizing ethics, discipline, responsibility, and moral development.

• Community Empowerment: Vocational exposure in sustainable agriculture, livestock farming, and foundational soft skills to build resilience and practical competence.

Through consistent engagement, we have witnessed not only academic improvement but also increased confidence and aspiration among students who once doubted their ability to compete.

Why Formal Education Is Now Essential

Despite national progress, poverty remains a structural challenge in Indonesia. According to the World Bank’s 2024 Macro Poverty Outlook (based on the 2021 Purchasing Power Parity update), around 60% of Indonesia’s population—more than 170 million people—live below the upper-middle-income poverty line of USD 6.85 per person per day. Economic vulnerability remains widespread, particularly among informal workers and rural households.

This vulnerability directly impacts education.

Limited household income restricts families’ ability to provide:

• Adequate nutrition for learning

• School-related expenses

• Books and learning materials

• Access to digital devices and internet connectivity

As a result, children from poor and vulnerable households face significantly higher risks of learning loss and school dropout. Without structural intervention, poverty continues to reproduce itself across generations.

Through our close and continuous interaction with students, we have learned a critical lesson: informal support alone is not enough. To break the cycle of poverty sustainably, access to structured, high-quality formal education is essential—particularly in science, numeracy, and foundational competencies.

Our Vision: Establishing a Formal Junior Secondary School and Vocational Training Center

In response to this need, Yayasan INFEST has initiated plans to establish a formal education institution consisting of:

• A Junior Secondary School (SMP level)

• A Vocational Training Center (LPK)

The development is planned between 2026 and 2028.

We will adopt a boarding school model, commonly known in Indonesia as a pesantren. This model allows us to optimize learning outcomes while cultivating strong humanitarian and Islamic values, discipline, etiquette, and character formation.

By 2028, our goal is to support up to 400 students from underprivileged families across Yogyakarta.

This expansion represents not only growth in scale—but a deeper commitment to equity, access, and transformation.

What We Are Building

To make this vision a reality, we are developing essential infrastructure to support both academic and vocational learning, including:

1. Classroom buildings

2. Student dormitories

3. A main auditorium

4. A library

5. Health and sanitation facilities, including bathrooms and waste management systems

6. A STEM laboratory

7. A Vocational Training Center focused on agribusiness, livestock, and agricultural industries

8. Educational equipment and curriculum development resources

These facilities will create an integrated education ecosystem—where academic excellence, vocational competence, moral development, and community engagement grow together.

Why This Matters

Our experience serving 50 students through informal education has revealed a powerful truth: when children receive consistent support, access to quality instruction, and a nurturing environment, their trajectory changes.

However, many of our students come from disadvantaged households where insufficient academic support, limited learning materials, and minimal parental guidance significantly increase the likelihood of academic gaps and school abandonment.

Without targeted educational intervention, these conditions perpetuate intergenerational poverty.

Formal education—affordable, accessible, and holistic—is not simply an institutional upgrade. It is a structural response to systemic inequality.

By building this school, we are not only expanding facilities.
We are expanding opportunity.
We are strengthening resilience.
We are investing in dignity and long-term transformation.

And with the right support, we can ensure that rural children are no longer limited by circumstance—but empowered by access.