Category Archives: Volunteering

Everything about my experience as a member of certain organizations

Gio and Lia

Okay, since I already begin writing about SabangMerauke, I couldn’t stop now without telling stories about these two girls! They couldn’t be any different. One is very mischievous while the other one is more of an uptight kind of girl (I don’t want to detail which one is which 😆 )

Gio, like what I’ve written in the last post, is the ASM from Maluku and Lia was supposed to be her best friend for 3 weeks in Jakarta. Lia is the KSM. Her full name is Nurul Amalia and she is a Depok Girl. Their relationship wasn’t easy at the beginning – later on I found that the relationship of ASM-KSM was supposed to be hard to build so that it could be last forever. yes. Gio and Lia are now BFF and I know that it will be last forever. You can spot a genuine feeling when you see one!

First week was a week from hell *derived from their own dialogue 😀

Second week was the crucial week in their relationship. They began to know more about each other’s background, they started to share their story, and the wall between them was starting to brake.

Third week? Gio said that it was like she was flying and the farewell was coming too soon.

What I really learn from them : communication is a key to a good relationship. At first, they tend to not speak up what they have in their mind to each other, maybe to avoid hurting other’s feeling, but circumstances grew them closer and they began to trust each other. I could say that because I witnessed how their relationship evolved, even if they didn’t recognize it themselves. Lia was transforming to a great older sister for Gio, and Gio (used to be the oldest between her siblings) was also adapting to the new role she got in being little sister.

It is a fun thing observing how Lia taught Gio to be tough: facing the hectic morning in Jakarta, surviving morning Depok Train, enjoying their busy schedule, and squeezing “steak time” for them to pour their heart out. It is also fun to sharing stories with Gio about the programs and how she will implement the positive things in her village, also hearing how mush she loves to play guitar and watching horror movies. 🙂

For those 3 weeks, I feel blessed that they come to my life with their unique personalities. I feel blessed to know them both. I really want to thank them for everything they have shared with me. I really want to thank them for all the great things that taught me. They taught me if we want to find a common ground between all of our differences, it will be easy if both part agree to make effort to understand each other. We are not born to hate but we are born to love, so it is way easier to find something that we could work on together, rather than only talking about what set us apart.

Thanks for those great lessons you both have taught me. I am looking forward to hear great news about your journey to your wonderful future!

 

Love, Zesta.

SabangMerauke : The true unity in Diversity

Bhinneka Tunggal Ika is the Motto of Indonesia which means Unity in Diversity. We, as an Indonesians have known, learned, and read many articles trying to describe the meaning. Do you ever give a thought about the real implementation of these motto?

Only couple of people have a real experience living with people from different backgrounds: faith, religion, race, accent, and others. For 3 weeks in last July, my family have an amazing story. We are living with a christian junior high school girl from Maluku. What an amazing 3 weeks! We are still hang over by the greatness of this experience.

Could you imagine? For me, I would never imagine the real feeling until I get to feel those roller coaster of life. Those days weren’t easy at all – suddenly become parents of 13 yo-girl! All of those years studying about adolescence in the developmental psychology classes are finally making sense. Teenager is a whole different creature to handle – although we were all once a teenager.

Let’s not focus on how to parent a teenage girl – we need to focus on the program instead. I know about this program from a picture that was posted by my friend – Prie (which I adored so much, btw) in path and instantly caught my attention. I was discussing about it with Le Husband when I got struck by his question : “why?”

This question got me. I really want to join this program without any hesitation that when I was asked a simple why made me wonder. Why?

The first and only reason that I can came up with to explain my instant attraction was I wanted to do something for Indonesia. Cliche? yes. But for me it was the truth. We are now living in a post-truth era, where everyone has their own version of truth. With every person has a mean to tell their version, everyone else has their own way to only see evidences of their vision. Turn back hoax is an urgent thing for us to do now and what is better than experiencing it ourselves?

We have been reading many news about how one faith is so violence toward another; how one race is superior than the other; how we are really different from one another; and so on. In this post-truth era, everyone feels certain that their version of judgment is the truth. Deception is common and many people fell in to the framed trap : we are now framing one another. I am an Indonesian Moslem, part of the majority and I am sure that once in my lifetime I have stereotyped other people who is different. And now – more than ever – I need to make sure that those labeling will discontinue.

SabangMerauke is an initiative that select 15 junior high school students from all over Indonesia to come to Jakarta for 3 weeks and live in a Family which is different from them (either by race or religion) thus they will experience how to work on their differences and be a true family….because tolerance is not something that you can understand by only learning about it – you have to experience it to really feel its true meaning. Every weekday, these teenagers got to visit different places to learn about Education, Tolerance, and Indonesia : 3 main values of SabangMerauke. Weekend was family time and most of us will take those children to places that they really want to visit in Jakarta, or take them to our family gathering. Other than these teenagers, volunteers, committees and us – the Families, there were also “brother and sister” of SabangMerauke which accompany the children towards their program – act as a tutor, counselor, and the most important role : best friends! *The children is called Anak SabangMerauke (ASM); Family is Family SabangMerauke (FSM); Bro/Sis is Kakak SabangMerauke (KSM). To understand more about the program, visit http://sabangmerauke.id/

Being part of this initiative gave me opportunities to meet great people from different background. The ASMs are not your typical junior high school students. They are energetic kids with great visions and very motivated to achieve their dreams. You will be very optimistic about Indonesian future if you talk to them. The girl who was living with me, my daughter, is Giovani Kapiluka. Gio – her nickname – is in her third year in Junior High School in Ketty Letpey – a village in Lakor Island, Maluku. She loves to play guitar and really into music and singing. She wants to be a singer one day, but also has a vision where all the children in her village could get an access to proper education. She wants to make sure everyone knows that education is important and every children in her village has equal access to school. But when I ask whether she want to switch from being a singer to an Education Minister, she still aspired to be a singer (typical teenager 😆 ).

Many stories about how joining this initiative affect my life in a very positive ways. I could finally write this post in more than a week after the farewell dinner due to my full mind and full heart : resonated from this program. I literally caught in tears every time I remember the joyous feeling of being a part of SabangMerauke. Many stories. Much Laugh. Much Tears. Many years to face until we could finally see the real impact of this positive vibe shared by SabangMerauke. For now, I am most grateful for the new family I found in SabangMerauke. Bravo SabangMerauke!

 

 

 

Satyaku ku dharmakan, Dharmaku ku baktikan

..Sorry, this post is going to be written in Bahasa.

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Saya tak bisa mengingat tahun berapa saya pertama kali bergabung di Gerakan Pramuka, seingat saya saat itu saya masih jadi siswa di Sekolah Dasar di Sebuah kecamatan yang bernama Sungai Apit. Kegiatan yang paling saya ingat adalah perkemahan yang dihadiri anggota pramuka dari Sungai Apit dan Siak, berakhir lebih cepat dari jadwal karena ada insiden kerasukan massal. Kemudian saya pindah ke Pekanbaru karena ikut papa pindah kerja dan tentu saja masih bergabung di GP.

Masa yang paling menentukan dalam sejarah keanggotaan saya di GP adalah ketika saya menjadi Penggalang di SLTPN 4 Pekanbaru. Saya mendapat banyak kesempatan untuk ikut dalam beberapa event regional, nasional maupun internasional. Menjadi anggota GP sebagai penegak di SMAN 8 Pekanbaru membuktikan bahwa semakin tua usia kita, semakin tinggi tingkatan kita dalam sebuah organisasi, maka tanggung jawab akan semakin besar dan semakin banyak pengorbanan yang harus kita lakukan. Pilihan selalu menghadang di setiap kita akan melangkah, sayapun akhirnya memilih untuk mengundurkan diri dari kepengurusan Dewan Kerja Cabang Pekanbaru karena harus melanjutkan pendidikan di perantauan. Sempat merasa sangat berat untuk melepas teman-teman dan semua kenangan di Kwarcab Pekanbaru, sempat mengalami syndrome “gak mau ikut Pramuka lagi” sampai akhirnya saya menemukan jalan untuk kembali dan bergabung dalam Racana Tribhuwanatunggadewi, UGM.

Saya bukan ingin menulis tentang kegiatan-kegiatan tersebut tetapi saya ingin menulis tentang perasaan rindu yang selalu menghinggapi setiap mendengar kata “pramuka” dan “perkemahan”.

Saya rindu saat-saat packing untuk mempersiapkan keberangkatan, baik packing barang pribadi maupun (terutama) packing barang regu. Lambaian tangan dan airmata saat pelepasan keberangkatan terasa sangat menyedihkan (dulu) walaupun sekarang kalau teringat, hal itu membuat senyum simpul karena terasa (agak) lebay.

Selisih pendapat, diam-diaman, adu argumen, keras kepala, gak mau kurve, gak bisa masak, males bersihin tenda (apalagi kalau disuruh bersihin tapak perkemahan, ew banged itu), begadang sambil ngerumpi, api unggun, cinta lokasi, curi-curi pandang, curi-curi kesempatan, ngejar tanda tangan pembina, tukar-tukaran nomor telpon (rumah), kehilangan sendok, kecurian jemuran, ngantri kamar mandi, wc yang baunya aduhai, baju side A-side B, sepatu berlumpur, ngungsi karena tenda kebanjiran, diomelin bindam, dandan buat pentas, demam panggung, nyanyi-nyanyi di bis, kelayapan di kapal, mabuk darat dan laut, jalan-jalan keluar Buper diam-diam, dapat kiriman donat dari keluarga yang (dipaksa) berkunjung.

Argh.

Jadi makin rindu. Waktu tak mungkin bisa diulang kembali, rasa yang dulu tak mungkin bisa dihadirkan lagi, tapi kesempatan untuk membuat kenangan baru akan selalu terbuka selagi hayat masih dikandung badan. Usia tak lagi muda, masa menjadi peserta didik telah usai, baju sudah tak lagi muat, tapi keterampilan yang di dapat sangat berguna hingga saat ini, jiwa pun masih berasa muda dan yang paling penting Persaudaraan Bakti yang sudah terjalin tak lekang oleh masa.

Terima kasih Gerakan Pramuka Indonesia.

Dirgahayu!

Moments with @photomatt and @wpjkt

I have to admit that this one is really a very late post.

Last week, the CEO of automattic was coming to Jakarta for the 3rd Jakarta WordPress Meetup and I was so happy to be a part of WPJKT volunteer (Thanks to Mr Valent for allowing me to volunteer). This is a big event for WordPress community in Indonesia, esp. Jakarta but Mr Valent succeed in organizing this event with only few volunteers! I do suspect that he has done some magic.. 😆

Conversation with Matt Mullenweg was held in Binus University. True to the theme, Q&A session was so fun. Many participants asked many kinds of questions which answered eagerly by Matt. I did enjoy the event despite I didn’t really understand what they were talking about since I am a pure user (I don’t really understand their language, it was like they were talking about coding in a code language :D).

Matt was talking about his early year developing WordPress, how the name WordPress is decided and many things they have done so far until WordPress become so massive. Bahasa Indonesia is not surprisingly one of the most used language for blogging in WordPress base blog, therefore WordPress will launch its full Indonesia translation!

One thing that attract me from many things he said in the night session was that how he love to photograph the cloud, that is maybe the reason behind this. Other thing that attract me was in the Brunch Session when he said that he loves Path and that is why posting a WordPress entry from path is so easy and vice versa.

With a founder like Matt, I don’t have doubt that WordPress will keep getting bigger and bigger. He has passion in everything he does and from two things above, I know that he love what he’s doing and he could spread the love all around the world.

This is truly a big opportunity for me, Thanks to mas Valent for the chance. I am looking forward for the next one! #eh

Selfie with Matt! :lol:
Selfie with Matt! hohoho

 

 

Let’s Meet Matt!

Do you know that WordPress is one big blog platform, and kind of the biggest one in the world?

Do you know that WordPress also is one of the most used platform for any purposes of self-hosted web in the world?

…do you know that Matt Mullenweg is the founder of Automattic who run this WordPress.com?

…and do you know that Matt will come to Jakarta soon?

 

Why Jakarta?

..maybe because Bahasa Indonesia is the top four language used by wordpress.com bloggers (read it here)

or maybe YOU SHOULD REALLY COME TO KNOW MORE ABOUT IT! :-))

 

3rd Jakarta WordPress Meetup
3rd Jakarta WordPress Meetup

 

So, Come and Join the 3rd Jakarta Meet Up on 2nd June, 2014!

Follow @WPJKT in twitter and Join the Jakarta WordPress MeetUp Group and Reserve your place here.

Go visit the official Jakarta WordPress Meetup here.

Cheers!

See you next month..

@daRkJasm

Better Education for All

After such a long hiatus in posting and after encountering my own fear to be involve again in a social forum, I came to PS Bloggers Gathering last night at Es Teller 77 Adityawarman. (This is gonna be a long long post, pardon me)

Education to Employment: Preparing Globally Competent and Highly Employable Indonesians.

That was the theme last night. The speakers are Iwan Setiawan (author of “9 summers 10 autumns”) and Chris Crow (US Fullbright Scholarship Alumnus). We shares our concerns about Education in Indonesia, Chris also presented USBI that offers many fun ways to educate young people.

Just yesterday morning, I read an article about how Indonesians are lazy to read and Mas Iwan also highlighted these thing in his sharing session. He said that in Indonesia, students are not encouraged to read because most of us are just memorizing the lesson for a good grade, not to make ourselves understand the subjects. Chris also share his experience when he was teaching english in Maluku, he said that students there, are good at answering close ended question, while they found an open ended question very hard to answer. I guess this problematic fact root once again to “reading habit”. In the article I’ve read earlier, the writer shared that he was mocked overseas because he said that his hobby is reading. Reading is not a hobby overseas, they just read, while in Indonesia we classified reading as an hobby so people who stated their hobby is watch movie, they probably never read.

Continue reading “Better Education for All”

Dirgahayu Gerakan Pramuka!

The farewell message from Baden-Powell of Gilwell

“Dear Scouts – If you have ever seen the play “Peter Pan” you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of good-bye.

Remember, it is the last time you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so you can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. “Be Prepared” in this way, to live happy and to die happy- stick to your Scout Promise always when you have ceased to be a boy – and God help you to do it.

Your friend,

Robert Baden-Powell”

Malam Ulang Janji

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Saya ingat. Malam ini beberapa tahun yang lalu, kami berkumpul untuk melaksanakan ulang janji sebagai anggota Gerakan Pramuka.

Sekarang, fisik saya mungkin tidak lagi bisa ikut berkumpul melaksanakan ulang janji bersama, tetapi jiwa saya tetap meresapi makna dalam janji yang dilafazkan berulang kali itu.

Ulang janji bagi saya bukan merupakan hal yang sakral atau hal yang pantas dikuduskan, namun yang saya percaya adalah ketika kita mengucapkan sesuatu berulang-ulang, kemungkinan hal itu akan bertahan lebih lama dalam ingatan akan meningkat. Jika otak kita saya sudah mengingatnya, akan lebih mudah bukan bagi tubuh untuk melakukan hal sesuai dengan apa yang tertanam di pikiran?
🙂

Dirgahayu Gerakan Pramuka
14 Agustus 1961 – 14 Agustus 2013

Trisatya

Demi kehormatanku aku berjanji akan bersungguh-sungguh:
1. Menjalankan kewajibanku terhadap Tuhan, Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia dan mengamalkan Pancasila.
2. Menolong sesama hidup dan ikut serta membangun masyarakat
3. Menepati Dasadharma