Belinda Tanoto, a member of the Board of Trustees of Tanoto Foundation, visited Kabupaten Batu Bara and Kabupaten Asahan, North Sumatra Province, in July 2017. During this visit, Belinda Tanoto made observations of various activities of Pelita Pendidikan program and held direct discussions with school principals, teachers, local government, and communities in the regions.

Pelita Pendidikan is one of Tanoto Foundation programs aimed at improving the quality of education in Indonesia, especially in rural areas. To date, Pelita Pendidikan has supported 518 rural schools in North Sumatra, Riau, Jambi and DKI Jakarta provinces.

“Going to the field is our way of seeing firsthand how Tanoto Foundation programs are run. From this, we can evaluate various programs as the basis for further development, both in terms of quality and scale of beneficiaries, “said Belinda Tanoto.

Pelita Pendidikan program consists of four components, namely Pelita ASRI to help schools be healthy, clean, and environmentally friendly; Pelita Guru Mandiri to improve the competence and capacity of teachers in schools; Pelita Pustaka is a program to increase reading interest of children; and PAUD program is a program to improve the quality of early childhood education.

On the first day, Belinda visited SDN 010157 Sei Muka, SDN 010152 Sei Muka, and SDN 010155 Sei Muka in Kecamatan Talawi, Kabupaten Batu Bara. There Belinda made direct observations on teaching learning activities in the classroom.

Then, observations were also made on Pelita ASRI, Pelita Pustaka, and Pelita Guru Mandiri programs run in those schools. In addition, a sharing session was also held with local school teachers who have been trained as local facilitators by Tanoto Foundation.

“In Pelita ASRI, Pelita Guru Mandiri, and Pelita Pustaka programs, Tanoto Foundation does not take the leading role. The main actors are actually the teachers and other school components. They are change agents in North Sumatra. Here we only act as a catalyst. Our hope is that, after having participated in our various trainings, teachers can share their knowledge with other teachers within the same Kelompok Kerja Guru/KKG (Teacher Working Group), “continued Belinda Tanoto.

On the second day, Belinda Tanoto continued her visit to Kabupaten Batu Bara. There she made observations of the activities of Pelita Guru Mandiri and Pelita Pustaka programs that have been replicated by 24 schools in Kabupaten Batu.

On this occasion, Belinda also observed Training of Trainers activities for local facilitator candidates at SDN 013874 Bulan Bulan in Kecamatan Limapuluh. Belinda also took time to see KKG activities at SDN 0100148 Padang Genting Kecamatan Talawi.
“Through trainings from Tanoto Foundation we have learned many new methods to teach our students with. Hopefully, we can apply what we receive here in our respective schools, “said Ibu Rahuni, one of the participating teachers from SDN 015882 Guntung, Limapuluh, Batu Bara.

On the last day, Belinda visited Tempat Penitipan Anak/TPA (Children Daycare Center) Kebun Pulau Maria, Kabupaten Asahan, North Sumatra to see first hand quality of the facilities and adequacy of the educational content in the TPA. Then the visit was completed with a visit to Tanoto Foundation partner schools, namely SDS Bina Dharma Gunung Melayu and SDS Bina Dharma Muara Tiga, located in Kecamatan Rahuning, Kabupaten Asahan to see the activities of healthy school campaign and reading campaign.

Viola Purinirwana, a fourth grader at SD 010157 Sei Muka elementary school in Talawi district, Batu Bara regency, North Sumatra, looked confident when telling a folklore tale before her classmates.

“The moral of the story is that a mother is the one that you have to glorify and whose feelings and heart have to be respected.” Viola said as she ended her story.

She said she have been developing storytelling skills for two years thanks to training offered by volunteers.

The headmaster of the school, Dumalena Sianturi, said the training offered by third-party organizations, such as NGOs and foundation, was crucial given the limited budget provided by the regional administration.

“Our school has been facing difficulties in improving education quality here because of a limited budget,” Dumalena told The Jakarta Post at the school which is located 25 kilometers from the regency capital city.

The sentiment was shared by Aida, the Headmaster of SD 010152 Sei Muka elementary school.

She said assistance by NGOs helped the school in numerous achievements. Recently, the school won first place in the regency’s library management competition for the elementary school category, thanks to the school’s partnership with Tanoto Foundation.

Batu Bara Education Agency head Yandi Siswandi acknowledged that the regency’s budget in the education sector was below the ideal 20 percent of the total budget.

“The education budget this year was only six percent of the regency budget of Rp1,1 trillion,” Yandi said.

As a result, he said, the regency was struggling to improve the average teacher quality index in Batu Bara, which stood at 4.7, far below the minimum national standard of 6.5.

“This is very concerning because almost 85 percent of the teachers here hold only an under-graduate degree,” he said.

He said assistance from the NGOs, such as in the form of book donation or training, was important to help compensate for the low budget and to improve the quality of the teachers and education in general.

Yusnita Saragih, a teacher at SD 118315 Perkebunan Negeri Lama elementary school in Labuhanbatu regency, said she felt grateful to have had the opportunity to join a training program and receive a scholarship offered by a foundation this year.

However, she also expressed disappointment over the government paying “poor attention” to teachers working in remote areas.

“Sometimes I wanted to cry because it seemed like third-party organizations cared about us more than the government,” said the honorarium based teacher who has been teaching for 13 years in a school located 45 km from the regency capital city.

One foundation that regularly offers assistance and training to schools in the province is Tanoto Foundation.

Established in 1981, the foundation aims to support poverty eradication in Indonesia through education, empowerment and life quality improvement programs.

Tanoro Foundation’s North Sumatra regional program manager Yusri Nasution said one of the foundation’s programs in the education sector was Pelita Pendidikan. It was launched in 2010 and is implemented in 103 schools across the province.

The article was published in The Jakarta Post, August 29, 2107.

“I like to eat vegetables but my mom rarely cooks them”, said Manda, 10 years of age, one of the residents of Desa Selemak, Kecamatan Hamparan Perak, Kabupaten Deli Serdang, North Sumatra.

The situation that Manda is experiencing is a common practice in that village.  Most of the villagers work as scavengers with low income.  This condition causes low access to and awareness of the consumption of extremely low-nutrition food.

Every day, these scavengers are only able to provide simple food with unbalanced nutrition contents.  They usually consume rice as the source of carbohydrate and eggs or salted fish as the source of protein, while sources of vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber are disregarded or even not provided.

This is what underlies Ayu Rizkyana, Tanoto Scholar from Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) to create Nutri Bank program.  This student of the Faculty of Public Health of USU is cooperating with Bank Sampah (Waste Bank) SMJ Hamparan Perak to work together to build public health, especially for scavengers in the village of Selemak in terms of the fulfillment of balanced nutrition.

The Nutri Bank concept is quite simple. The scavengers exchange equivalent amounts of wastes that they collect with healthy foods consisting of fruits and vegetables during the activity.

The program, which also received support from Tanoto Foundation, was held every Saturday and Sunday, from 17 June to 9 July 2017.  At the end of the program, dissemination was held for the village community about the importance of healthy and nutrition-balanced food consumption.

The villagers were very happy with this program. Manda, for example, collected her garbage to be exchanged for her favorite pears and cauliflowers while Bu Nining (42) who always exchanged her garbage with apples, pears, broccoli, and milk for her children.

Ayu hopes the Nutri Bank program can be continued and further developed, not only in Desa Selemak, but also in other villages so it can always motivate and educate the community in the fulfillment of balanced nutrition.

Ayu Rizkyana is a Tanoto Scholar from Universitas Sumatera Utara and a participant of Young Leaders for Indonesia National Batch 9.