On the 7th of January until 7th of
February 2014, AIESEC Universitas Indonesia held a project based on exchange
(P-Box) called Children of Tomorrow (CoT) which concerns on the language
literacy. In this winter, CoT was held in Rumah Belajar Proklamasi, Manggarai.
Rumah Belajar Proklamasi has become the partner of CoT for around four times
and now Rumah Belajar Proklamasi became the witness of the success of CoT for one
more time.
It was approximately 3 months the organizing committees of
CoT worked and prepared for the CoT to be realized successfully. In the first
round, we opened opportunity for the exchange participants, volunteers, as well
as the host family to join our project. The exchange participants were chosen
by CV assessment as well as interview. Those who showed a high willingness to
work and high sense of commitment were given the priority for this project. Meanwhile,
the volunteers as well as the host family were selected based on their ability
in speaking English, high sense of commitment, and their availability during
the project.
CoT as one of the AIESEC UI P-Box invited seven exchange
participants from Rusia, Belgium, New Zealand, and China to teach English to
the children in Rumah Belajar Proklamasi. The main goal of CoT was to give a life-changing
experience for the exchange participants as well as the children. In this
project, the exchange participants were not only teaching, but also sharing
their experience in their country to the children. They did the activities
together, laughed together, and played together. From their interaction, their
mind were opened toward something outside their country which they could never even
been thinking about before. The experience teaching in the slum area with the
various backgrounds of children was the real challenge for the exchange
participants. Moreover, the culture difference was also the main issue that had
to be faced by them.
Besides teaching English everyday in
Rumah Belajar Proklamasi, CoT also arranged the other interesting activities for
the exchange participants to make their experience in Indonesia become more
meaningful. Those activities were global village, fundraising, bonding trip,
and many more. In the global village, all the exchange participants gathered
and presented their own country to the public. On the other hand, fundraising
was aimed at collecting money to be given to the Rumah Belajar Proklamasi as
one of our attempts to help them financially.
The success of CoT was not apart from the contribution of our
sponsors and media partners. Lois and International Language Program (ILP)
Cikini have become our main sponsors, not to mention @AboutJKT and @anakuidotcom
as our media partners. Without their contribution, this project would be
nothing more than just a plan.
As the Organizing Committee President of this project, I was
very happy and proud of everybody who had given their hard work to this
project. This is one of the experiences I would never forget in the future. In
every step I take, I will always remember the time we spent together and the
things I learned from you all. I really hope that the experience we all got in
this project could teach us something to become a better person. I miss and
love my OCs, EPs, Volunteers, and of course children of Rumah Belajar
Proklamasi. Best of luck to all of us. :D