Turning Life Around With Tolerance

by Kate Watson

‘Moshi moshi, Ola Ola, hello, apa kabar?” The classroom is filled with young women and men, all on their feet, giggling and talking excitedly. They’ve just learnt a song with actions (meaning ‘Hello how are you?’ in various languages) and they’re using it as a springboard to chat with new friends and learn facts about each other.

It’s only been running for 3 months at SMA Negri 2 Kabupaten Sorong School, but the results of the Pendidikan Kecapakan Hidup Sehat (PKHS, or Life Skills Education) programme are already showing through the self-confidence exuding from the students.

“It’s all really interesting and the games are really great!” says Dwirizki Sandola, age 17. “They help us express ourselves - we can say what we want, we can ask what we want!” he adds. Students in Indonesia are rarely given the opportunity to speak out during classes, so participating like this helps them to find their voices and feel empowered.

The Life Skills Education programme consists of a series of life skills topics which young people are encouraged to discuss and learn about through games, quizzes, examples and debates. Each session focuses on something new, such as dealing with conflict, understanding emotions – even topics like bullying or gender. Others focus on specific risks like drugs, unwanted pregnancy or HIV.

Students at SMA Negri 2 Kabupaten Sorong School take part in a life skills class

©UNICEF Indonesia/2017/Kate Watson

 

“Before this Life Skills Education programme began, there were many of us who hung out in bad groups or who were in negative situations,” Dwirizky explains. “But through this programme, we were shown how things might eventually turn out.”

This is one of the goals of the programme, to help young people through the sometimes-difficult decisions they need to make in their personal lives. It aims to help boost their confidence, build their social and personal skills, and better navigate the risks they face.

“Before, I used to do really bad things. I was violent,” Dwirizky adds. “But through this programme, I’ve learnt how to handle my emotions and restrain myself.”

Young people in Papua Province witness violence more often than they should, and so understandably often also resort to it when emotions take over. It’s a cycle that needs breaking if young people are going to take control of their futures.

 Dwirizky Sandola, age 17 says that the life skills classes have helped him and his friends to express themselves and gain self-confidence.

©UNICEF Indonesia/2017/Kate Watson

Rizky Tiara Ramadani, age 17, is another student who has seen the difference her choices have made. “I used to get cajoled into joining in [with my friends]” she says. “They would coerce me to do bad things and I wasn’t brave enough to say no. I didn’t know how,” she says, defiantly adding that since joining the class, she now knows exactly how to refuse. She has found her voice.

Learning about the world from other’s perspectives is a crucial element of the programme, one that enables the students to empathise with others and see different possibilities for the future.

“For me, the most interesting thing about Life Skills Education is learning about tolerance” says Dwirizky’s friend Kadek Windu Dea Atmaja, also age 17. He moved to the area a few years ago from the island of Bali. Although it’s still Indonesia, Bali is several hours away by flight, and miles away in terms of the risks and challenges faced by each unique culture in the country.

“Most of the people there are Hindu, and I didn’t often meet people who were different,” says Kadek, who took a long time to adapt to his new, predominantly Christian environment. “Over there, it was hard to think that people have a different way of life.”

 Kadek Windu Dea Atmaja, age 17, feels more tolerant of others since he has had the opportunity to discuss different life experiences with his classmates through the life skills programme.

©UNICEF Indonesia/2017/Kate Watson

Through the group discussions sparked in the Life Skills class, where he and his fellow classmates share their own experiences, he began to realise that everyone has a different background and that it makes things more interesting.

“My attitude has changed, I know more now and I am more tolerant. Maybe I stand out, but now I can understand that maybe they say bad things just because they don’t understand.”

It’s something he’s even passed onto his Grandma, who often complains that their neighbours don’t understand them. She listens to Kadek, as does his whole family, and he says it’s given them a lot more to reflect on together. “

The class ends with big smiles and laughter as the teenagers bounce out of the classroom in twos and threes ready to eat their lunch. “If this programme didn’t exist, I think the difference would be enormous,” adds Dwirizki. “Turning negative things into positive things is huge! If we weren’t guided, there would be no alternatives and we wouldn’t know where we were going,” he says “Maybe we’d still be doing bad things until now!”

The teacher in Papua who won't give up

By Saskia Raishaputri Moestadjab

Ibu Naomi teaches a class © Saskia Raishaputri Moestadjab / UNICEF / 2017

We sailed through the river flanked by mangroves, taking lefts and rights, heading in what felt like thousands of directions. The night before, I’d spent 7 restless hours waiting for the waters to rise and the boat to come. I was exhausted.

Finally, at midnight, the team and I reached Wainlabat Village, 8 hours later than expected. 

Set in the province of West Papua, Wainlabat is home to SD Inpres 58, one of 120 schools participating in UNICEF’s Rural Remote Education Initiative (RREI, funded by DFAT).  Launched in 2015, the RREI aims to boost literacy and school attendance among early grade students in Tanah Papua (West Papua and Papua Provinces), where education performance lags far behind national averages. 

More than 100 “mentors” have been trained by UNICEF on literacy-building techniques, which include teaching letter sounds, employing interactive singalongs, and introducing newly designed textbooks. Each of these mentors are placed in one of the 120 participating schools to train teachers on the new approaches.

Midway through the 3-year programme, results are already in evidence: The number of non-readers has halved from 1 in 2 to roughly 1 in 4, while fluent comprehension has doubled to around 14 per cent of early grade learners. It is clear to me that that the programme is working.

Motorcycles are often used to traverse the wooden path leading the river to the the village © Saskia Raishaputri Moestadjab / UNICEF / 2017

After exiting the 2-kilometer path from the river to the village, I saw very few people. I wondered where the community leaders were. Then I met Ibu Guru Naomi. 

Ibu Naomi, a Wainlabat native, has dedicated her life to this community, doing what many do when they want to make the most difference: She became a teacher.

Entering her classroom, I tiptoed through the aisles watching her teach. The 3rd grade class was singing and writing, grinning ear-to-ear. Next door, older students were sitting and talking. Why were they alone? Where was their teacher? I wondered.

I later found out the reason: Naomi is the only teacher in town. 

Every day, Ibu Naomi splits time between the six primary school grades. Sometimes, she combines first and second grades, or fourth and fifth grades, into a single class. But even then she still misses some classes. 

Ibu Naomi shuttles between classrooms to teach © Saskia Raishaputri Moestadjab / UNICEF / 2017

"There used to be other teachers here,” says Pak Slamet, the UNICEF-trained literacy mentor in Wainlabat. “They left for a couple of days to the city, but it's been months and they haven’t returned".

“And the principal? he's barely here.”

Teacher and principal absenteeism are major hurdles to education in Tanah Papua. Part of the problem is that principals are often posts of patronage rather than merit, which affects their capacity to run the school and appreciate the full value of education. The situation compromises the ability for students to get the education they deserve. 

Two schoolgirls read outside their classrom in Wainlabat © Saskia Raishaputri Moestadjab / UNICEF / 2017

In 2015, when Ibu Naomi returned to Wainlabat from Sorong, where she attended secondary school, she was devastated to see how many children were unable to read. “They didn’t even know how to order words,” she recalls. “There was no structure to the classes – it all depended on the teacher and what they wanted to teach.”

With the new approach to literacy, she says, progress was swift. After a couple  months, “they [the students] began to show improvements in knowing letters, even stringing words together!”

“Parents were telling me, ‘if this is working, we can’t let you leave. These children need to be able to read’!” 

"But I'm alone here,” she reminds me. “How am I supposed to teach six grades of students?" 

 I swallow, not knowing what to say.

“Hopefully with what I do, I will try to open people’s hearts to see they should be here for [the children] too," she says. 

Our conversation ended at noon. As I turned off the camera and closed my notebook, Ibu Naomi said she needed to go back home to change clothes before her 1pm class. We said goodbye.

Wainlablat Elementary School in Sorong, West Papua © Saskia Raishaputri Moestadjab / UNICEF / 2017

Leaving the village, I took one last look back at the school. The door ajar, I could see Ibu Naomi teaching.

The image has stayed with me; here was a grassroots education champion, a true daughter of the land. I could only imagine how much literacy would improve if Papua had more like her.

"Even if the school is simple, or the students are few, we must never give up,” she told me. “We must never give up.”

Making bullying uncool in Central Java

by Cory Rogers, Communication Officer

Tika, right, stands with fellow change-maker Sri in Semarang. The two say they are proud to be taking a stand against bullying © Cory Rogers / UNICEF / 2017

Central Java: Daylight is fading as Tika, 14, sits down, brushes the lint off her pants, and begins to recall a memory she can’t quite shake.

“My classmates put a bucket over my head,” she says softly. “Then they took turns hitting me.” 

Three years later, the pain is still raw. “I still don’t know why they [my classmates] did it,” she says. 

It’s a question thousands of Indonesian schoolchildren grapple with every day.

According to the latest data, over 1 in 5 children between 13-15 years of age – some 18 million children in total – have been bullied and another 1 in 3 children have been physically attacked in schools. 

For a Government committed to ending all forms of violence against children, schools are a key front in the battle.

“Bullying, both physical and verbal, has been proven to increase anxiety and diminish the self-esteem and sense of belonging necessary to learn and develop effectively,” says Emilie Minnick, UNICEF Indonesia Child Protection Specialist. “None of that bodes well if every child is to be empowered to realize their full potential.”

Roots, a new initiative launched by UNICEF and the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection, in partnership with an array of district governments and NGO partners, invites students to take the lead in addressing the peer-to-peer abuse.*

The basic idea is simple but powerful -- to create a space for a small group of students to probe the problem and define the solutions themselves.
Outside facilitators help keep order, but the programme is student-run.

“Then, during Roots Day and beyond, the goal is for students to take this learning outward to change attitudes,” Minnick says.

Student change-makers make final preparations a day before Roots Day at SMP 17 in Semarang © Cory Rogers / UNICEF / 2017

Since its launch this year, the Roots Programme pilot has been rolled out at four middle schools in South Sulawesi and another four in Central Java.

In South Sulawesi, the Roots Programme saw a 30 per cent reduction in bullying following the intervention. “We’re excited about what this could mean for a scale-up nationally,” Minnick says.

Enlisting the ‘influencers’

Roots is more than a one-off event. It is the culmination of a semester-long process. 

Over that period, 30 girl and boy “change-agents” examine bullying from several angles to determine what it is and what should be done to stop it.

Among boys, Tika says, bullying often means physical violence. 

“Just last week I saw a boy get books thrown at him in class,” Tika says. According to government figures, more than a third of middle-school aged boys have been involved in a fight. “The incident should have been taken to the principal, but it wasn’t.” 

There can be a high tolerance of bullying, which is precisely what needs to change, Tika says.

Students at SMP 2 in Klaten, Central Java, come together to declare a new commitment to ending bullying during Roots Day © Cory Rogers / UNICEF / 2017

For girls, the most popular form of bullying is to shame, or “hate” on another classmate, she says,. But by far the most common form is to play with names.**

It’s a subtle form of teasing, but it can lead to serious consequences, including school drop-out and long term psychological impact.

At SMP 17 Semarang, Tika was chosen as one of the 30 ‘agents of change’ whose task it was to interrogate bullying and plan Roots Day.

“The selection process is a key feature of the intervention,” says Naning Julianingsih, UNICEF Indonesia Child Protection Specialist. “We asked all the students to list the 10 people they spend the most time with, and those with the most mentions become a pool from which we drew 30.”

These are the students with the largest network of friends, and hence, “the most potential to influence attitudes widely,” she says.

At Tika’s school, a few of those chosen declined to join – at first. “I think it was because they were shy, as people knew they were bullies,” Tika says.

A few weeks later the students decided to join.

“That shows how peers can make anti-bullying campaigns ‘cool’, Naning says, “and bullying ‘uncool’. Even those who have been bullies themselves can be swayed to join."

So what’s next?

A student changemaker (centre) shares a laugh with her friend during Roots Day at Semarang 17 Middle School ©Cory Rogers / UNICEF / 2017

Roots Day is when all these lessons come together for the wider campus body. 

Photo booths, music, and other attractions help spread the message, but the most important aspect is the opening of the conversation, says change-agent Dzulfiqar, 14. “The best way to end bullying is to make sure friends talk to friends about it,” he says. “And that starts with Roots Day.”

Angun Tri Kusumawati of Indonesia’s Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry agrees its crucial to keep the momentum for change.

“Your awareness should be a virus,” she told students at SMP 17. “When you sneeze, others should catch it!” 

Tika nods. 

Roots Day has given her a way to process and move on from the painful memories of the past. “No-one should ever have to feel what I felt, and I want to help ensure 100 per cent of children are treated the same.”

As she rises to address her teachers, her shyness seems to have fallen away. She is beaming. 

“Jangan jadi bully (don’t become a bully),” she yells, as others join in. “Mari jadi pembela!” (Let’s become defenders!)


*Partner NGOs include Yayasan Indonesia Mengabdi, Yayasan Setara and LPA Klaten. 

**the name Joko, for example, is changed to ‘Jokododo’, which means (in Javanese language), ‘don’t tell anyone.’