Help Dreams Rise in Remote Bali

All students from elementary through senior high school had done their semester test by May 20^th-29^th 2019, received their school report books on June 14^th 2019, and their new semester for 2019/2020 academic year officially started on July 15^th 2019.

In our high school students’ EMpower extracurricular classes, from June to end of July their key modules were job and university readiness, creative thinking skills, mind mapping of economic potential in Bali and Literacy information. For their field trip on June 28^th, the students had a study visits to Yayasan Kopernik and ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Art), both in Ubud, 80 kilometres away! This trip aimed to give them real experience in learning and sharing their knowledge. Some students also gave presentations about the product they have created from Bamboo in order to reduce plastic used. On August 8^thPengalusan students, together with their peers from Bunga and Cegi schools had a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) at EBPP Ban office to propose their school regulations concept they’ve made to ensure gender equality and reduce sexual harassment through a PowerPoint presentation to all teachers, facilitated by EMpower instructors. Such a brilliant idea!  

In addition to their regular lessons, many students were focusing on the activities for their stage performances for celebrating IndonesiaIndependence Day on August 17^th.  In both Jatituhu and Pengalusan schools some students were preparing and practicing their Balinese dance and music performances. Such hard work? Not really because they all love this special day each year when they get the chance to perform in front of their parents, communities and all their peers!

On August 17^th, all Jatituhu students celebrating the Independence Day in EBPP Daya Bamboo Centrewere transported by trucks rented by EBPP, together with their parents, and with Pengalusan and students from EBPP’s 4 other schools,all students joined the activities, which started with the formal flag hoisting ceremony, followed by sportsand other competitions, and then came the amazing stage performances. The sport competitions included sack race, Tug-of-war, squeezing balloons between 2 people whilst running, , driving the ball with a bottle tied to their waist, followed bya drawing competitionand English words whisper competition. 

When the results were compiled for all competitions, Jatituhu School took 2nd place and Pengalusan got the first place among EBPP’s six schools! Hearty congratulation! Their stage performanceswere also outstanding, with a talented girl from Jatituhu performing Balinese traditionalwelcome dance “Sekar Jagad”, while Pengalusan girls performed “Burat Wangi” dance and “Belibis” (bird dance), that were truly outstanding! EBPP volcano Band (5 of the 6 being Pengalusan students) showed off their music talent by performing their songs entitled “Stop harassment” and “Bully”. Those songs are quite famous among EBPP. They also performed some very popular Balinese songs like “Kidang Rengas” (wild deer) “Kidung Kasmaran” (love song), and “Garang Kuluk” (being chased by a dog). They also performing “Mejangeran” Balinese youth social dance which performed in a group of female and male students from Pengalusan School. Well done! All students performed very confidently to entertain hundreds of spectators.

Thank you to all the donors through GlobalGiving to keep supporting our students in East Bali so that they are able to enjoy learning in EBPP and develop their skills for a better future.

• List_of_Activities_for_74th_Independence_Day_17th_August_19.pdf (PDF)
  

New shoes and socks for all our students in March, three months after getting their new school uniforms and backpacks, was a cause for great excitement and huge smiles and pride the following day when they wore them to school!

Government exams for grade 6 elementary and grade 9 junior high school were different to previous years as this year, high school exams were computer-based! After simulation practice on computers at a district government school from March 10^th-11^th 2019, all were very confident when taking their exams from May 10^th – 12^th. Elementary schools still used  paper-based exams, which ran from April 8^th – 10^th. For all our other students, EBPP teacher prepared semester tests for all non-graduating classes, which ran from 20^th – 28th May 20^th. Our annual National Education Day celebrations on 2^nd May were held this year at EBPP Daya Bamboo Centre, far enough away from Mount Agung crater – which is still on 4km radius alert and erupted the previous day. Students from all EBPP schools, in collaboration with EBPP teachers, presented various creative arts performances, dance, music, poetry, and also a fantastic fun competition for Junior high school level creating English words through letters and also another one was creating English sentences. In the competition to arrange letters into words at junior high school level, Pengalusan School won first place!  

In our extra curricula youth empowerment “EMpower” classes, our Pengalusan students experienced teaching rather than learning! Our Pengalusan students presented what they had learned and put into practice in their EMpower classes on gender equality, sexual harassment, school dropout and underage child marriage, initially to EBPP’s Manikaji, Jatituhu, and Darmaji school. They presented these topics through videos, songs, power point, and posters so their presentation becomes exciting for the audience and generated many questions and great answer by our presenters. The highlight of these presentations was EBPP volcano Band, from Pengalusan, performing their two songs entitled “Stop Pelecehan” (stop harassment) and “Sadar” (mindful). Their last presentation was to inspire all school students to draft a School policy about tackling sexual harassment in their schools.

EBPP students also presented to the 3 Ban village government junior high schools from late March to early April, with the same goals but also to encourage collaboration and sharing of these principles and new “standards” in the future to eliminate sexual harassment, school dropout and early child marriage.

Giving presentations in other schools, especially government schools, helps our stunts gain more confidence in ‘public speaking’ so they get better at presenting their materials and will surely improve their prospects after they graduate school. These exciting achievements are driven by high motivation, dedicated teachers -  and made possible by generous donor funding through our Global Giving campaigns. Thank you!