Education Indonesia Project #24907

Empowering disadvantaged young people in Indonesia

by Yayasan Cipta Mandiri, The Foundation to create Independency for underprivileged teenagers Indonesia

Empowering disadvantaged young people in Indonesia

Project Report | Jul 17, 2019
Dreams change my life!

By Cahyono Agus | Human Resources Coordinator of YCM

Hi, I am Ono. I have 5 siblings, 4 older brothers and 1 older sister and I am the last kid from my family, my formal education was only primary school as my I cannot continue to higher education level because a year before I graduated from primary school my father passed away in an accident when he was working. Since then our financial situation which was already not good even getting worse after my father the bread winner of the family passed away. I cannot continue my study and decided to help my family by selling fries and breads from my neighbor (a small home industry) to earn a little amount of pocket money for 3 years, until I heard about YCM and finally decided to join with YCM in May 2005 when I was 15 years old. I knew YCM from my aunt who already joined with YCM before me. She said it is a good place to learn English and computer because it is free education for public mainly for underprivileged family. I lived not far from YCM, so since then I decided to come with my older brothers everyday morning and afternoon to learn English and computer even though English was the lesson that I did not like before but since I study in YCM it changed, because the way of teaching is different and fun. Now I have been at YCM for about 14 years already. In my first year of learning, I realized a big progress and improvement. YCM helps me to develop myself from knowing nothing until I know many things. I gain my confidence and could even speak English in within a year. But it was not enough for me, so I decided to study even more and harder. In my second year, Ibu Putu (one of the founders of YCM) asked me to help in teaching the kids in the afternoon. She asked me because she knew since the first time, I came to YCM and interviewed me,” what is your dream?” “I said, I would like to be a PPKN (general knowledge and moral values teacher Indonesian curriculum) teacher and a soccer player.” And she knows my talent in teaching. I grab this challenge and I really enjoy it and I feel like I found the real me. YCM’s people had motivate me a lot, YCM is a HOUSE of Dreams, where people or the youth like me did not dare to live our dreams or even to have dreams before. But at YCM we are encouraged to have our confidence in ourselves and dare to dream our dreams and make them come true. Since 2005 until nowadays, I have been here at YCM for about 14 years already and learned a lot from other people and also I learned the cross cultural with many volunteers that have been volunteering at YCM from different countries such as Germany, Australia and some other countries as well. Now I am an English/General Knowledge and Moral Values tutor at YCM and as a sport tutor for futsal, basketball and volleyball. And, I am one of the five core team members and I responsible as Human Resources Coordinator (HRC). Thanks Yayasan Cipta Mandiri, Global Giving, suppoters and donors to assist us to reach our dreams and to have better lives.

Links:

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Mar 20, 2019
YCM is My Life and My Love

By Abdul Kohar | Project Coordinator

YCM is my life and my love My name is Kohar, the Youth Project Coordinator at YCM. I’m the 4th from 6 siblings, 2 older brothers, 1 sister and 2 younger brothers. When I finished my study in the elementary school, I thought I can’t continue my study to junior school, because my father who was a casual labor in the morning and a security guard at night, only could earned enough money for our daily needs. He tried his best to let me continue my education to the junior high school with the help from our generous neighbor. When I was about 13 years old (second grade in junior high school), my father passed away because of an accident. He fell from a tree when he worked to cut my neighbor’s tree. I thought life is so unfair…my father the breadwinner of the family could no longer support us. My mom had to work as a helper for a neighbor, since my father passed away, she was the only one who earned money for our lives! My brothers and I had to quit from school. Education is a luxury thing for us, we could not afford it. We decided to help our mother to survive. We did some various jobs such as rubbish collector for the neighbors, selling bread around our village, worked as a dish washer in a local restaurant, washed our neighbor’s car, and the last worked at a neighbor’s house as a tobacco’s roller to make them into cigarettes. In 2005, I heard about Yayasan Cipta Mandiri (YCM) from a neighbor. My brothers and I decided to join the organization, which before I did not believe what the people said that we could learn there for free, not a single rupiah to join the activities at YCM. We eagerly learned many things at YCM. English, computer, gain self-confidence, dare to dream big and to achieve them, sharpen our talents and also networking. In 2010, another challenge happened to my family, my mom got seriously injured until now. She can’t walk because of an accident, a public transport that she took when she went to a traditional market with my sister crushed by a fallen tree on the side walk. Her back bone was the worst part that injured, and it makes her feet can’t support her body anymore. I’m proud to be a son of the strongest and the toughest mother in the world, who always support her children to be the better one. It is already 14 years I join YCM. YCM changes my life with the knowledge that I get every day, with the people who are supporting each other, and with all the opportunities that I get to improve my skills. I got scholarship to continue my education into a package school, looks similar with formal high school, but the schedule only 3 or 4 times in a week for a year and I graduated from the package school with some others YCM students. Different with my youngers, I am more interested to learn computer more, so when I got a chance to take a computer course and I was so excited. I learned web design and web programing for 5 months and 1 month learned computer technical and I also self-taught learning through the internet and I am happy because I can share my knowledge to the students at YCM. In 2011 was one of my best year, because I got a chance to make one of my dream comes true. Stepped my feet to another country. Through a simple program that YCM, former volunteers and one school in Australia, I did observation in a school for a month, learning, practicing what were the differences between Indonesia and Australia’s school program. I also shared about YCM to all the people whom I met with and when I returned to Indonesia, I shared my experiences as a motivational story for family, friends and students at YCM. Beside as one of the YCM management core team now, I am also responsible for our website maintenance, YCM online crowd funding like GlobalGiving, YCM social media, computer maintenance, English classes, helping the volunteers when they need to extend their visa and some other administrations works base on my abilities. I cannot mention all things that YCM have given to me to let me be a better person. I love what I learn and what I do at YCM as my second home where the staffs, students and all people at YCM are my family.

Links:

Our official website

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Dec 20, 2018
One of the success stories from a YCM student

By Abdul Kohar | Project Coordinator

Ronald he achieved his goal to work for “The Jakarta Post“, the biggest English newspaper of Indonesia! But not only this great achievement made us happy for him. Ronald finally got accepted for an Australian Awards Scholarship - this will enable him to pursue his Master studies in Australia. Amazing! We are so very proud of him. Read what he has to share!

“My name’s Ronatal (Ronald) Siahaan. I was a student who learned soft-skills and hard-skills at YCM from 2007 to 2011, and I also lived there from 2007 until 2017. I studied English Literature from 2011 to 2015. During my college years, I also spent my time teaching English and sharing my knowledge to YCM’s students.”

“YCM has changed my life upside down. There are so many important, useful things that I have gained from the foundation such as English, life-skills, and opportunities, which have helped me every step of the way.”

“In 2018, I accomplished two huge goals. The first one is I got accepted by a well-known, reputable English newspaper The Jakarta Post. I work there as a part-time proofreader, where my tasks revolve around reading and checking news stories – it’s been my fifth month. Ever since I started there, I have learned so much about journalism. There is always something new to absorb in terms of knowledge. Rather than calling it as a job, I’d prefer to call it a passion. Working there is such a great opportunity for me.”

“The second goal is I got awarded with the Australia Awards Scholarship (AAS) – thanks a lot to Mbak Mira M. Lay, YCM’s former volunteer, who nominated me through Embassy Partners category – which allows me to undertake a Master’s degree program in Australia next year. I would like to study Creative Writing, Publishing, and Editing that will take two years. I feel extremely grateful and lucky to receive the prestigious opportunity and I will harness it and make the most out of it.”

“YCM has changed my life – and it still does. Thank you, YCM. I couldn’t have done it without you. Hopefully, the students at YCM are inspired with the achievements that I have accomplished, so that they’re brave and confident to aim high when they grow up. Good luck!”

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