Dear friends and supporters of YCM!
It is time for some news and an update!
First of all we want to THANK YOU all, who supported us through the GLOBAL GIVING CROWDFUNDING. 65 people donated and we received 4.200 $ in total which means a lot to us. Also it guarantees us to be listed at Global Giving in future; hopefully this might bring some extra benefits. Besides the one-time donations we also receive now 5 monthly donations through this crowdfunding week!
YCM relies on donations by caring people. I just want to mention the effort of students from Gemeinschaftsschule Wentorf, who again collected money for our students. Also it was a great surprise that we received a donation by Bruno and his wife Siti who moved away from Bogor in 2003 but did not forget about YCM. As their 2. child was born recently they asked friends to donate for YCM instead of giving a present for the baby. My generous brother and his wife again donate to YCM! These are just 3 examples – Thank you, all donators!
Our review of the last 4 months focused on the performance of the ‘core team’ that took over most of our project leader’s Putu tasks as she is living in Australia for 2 years. Honestly I must say that I am positive surprised how smooth the transition goes. All five members- Kohar, Nur, Apry, Rusdam and Ono- show responsibility and work perfectly well as a team. No doubt that we are all missing Putu and her leadership skills, her great teaching and her positive attitude in seniority. BUT the core team is doing a great job. We are all in contact with Putu and she is still involved in some administrative work.
YEIP (Youth Empowerment & Internship Program) event
Through the one-year program that has been granted by the Community Grant Scheme from the partnership of Planet Wheeler and AVID program, we held a huge “Creative Event – Acara Kreatif” on October 28, 2017, at our backyard. We invited a lot of guests including important people in Bogor, former volunteers, colleagues, acquaintances, friends, and our students’ family members. A sponsor supplied a huge tent to cover our sport field. On stage students performed music, puppet show, stand-up comedy, dances, and martial arts. But the main attractions were the booths and displays from the different YCM communities which presented their work and services. It needs to be mentioned that the communities collected money for the expenses through different activities: selling Pizza on Sunday’s car-free day and organising a huge TRIVIA charity evening. Well done!
The event was a good success and was closed by handing out participation and appreciation awards to the YEIP participants and committee members for their dedication and commitment throughout the year, in making the event into a reality. We hope that by holding this very event, we would be more well-known around Bogor. Two TV stations joined as did the local newspaper Radar Bogor which published an interesting article the next day.
As a result of this event our communities are now invited to join at a fair in a shopping mall – again a good chance to display services like Bogor Tours and Graphic Design, Film documentation, Photography as well as selling products and find regular customers for the gardening team and the sewing team Kancing.
Irfan & Fajrin
Our two “resident” students that have diagnosis Cancer are amazing. We highly respect them for their positive attitude, their diligence and continuous work at YCM. Irfan just had his third surgery last week after waiting for months for the chance to get a hospital bed. Fajrin has been waiting for Radiation since half a year ago! Still no information when he will have the chance for the treatment. They are wonderful people and also I must mention that the others care for them very well too.
At our event they were brave enough to talk about their life condition with cancer and they sang a very touching song together on stage. It was so touching!
Havni, our computer teacher, mother of 2 little kids, has the same diagnosis of cancer and was operated a few days ago.
Nepali Volunteers
This is the first time for us to welcome Nepali volunteers. Affiliated with AIESEC-IPB (University Bogor exchange), Manish and Ihsan have come to our lovely place for a month to share their knowledge about website, computing, coding to our WEB-IT students. During the whole month, they also assisted our students to make projects. Thanks to Manish and Ihsan for sharing your precious knowledge for our students. Good luck for both of you in college! Here is what they said about being at our place:
“The people here are friendly and kind and I feel that they’re like a family to me,” Ihsan expressed. “What I love about the students is that they are eager to learn new things and they learn quickly,” said the man who is on his seventh semester.
“I meet a lot of good people here. The food is new to me,” Manish exclaimed. “I am impressed with the enthusiasm that the students posses, especially towards learning. The students are fast learners. I really like the concept of YCM. It’s without curriculum and the students start to learn skills from early ages. I will definitly come back!” he said.
New Volunteers
There are three female volunteers that have just started contributing at our place. They are Hannah Findlay (a Scottish), Iryna Boriichuk (a Ukrainian/German), and Farrea (a Malay). Hannah comes to teach English for our intermediate students twice a week. Irina commutes from Jakarta to Bogor once a week to teach English for our afternoon intermediate and basic students. Farrea is fond of helping our Gardening team on managing their program, as well as marketing their plant products.
Field Trip
We were lucky that our trainers and youth leaders got invited by Mercedes Benz factory through Iryna, because her husband works at the company, branch Gunung Putri, Bogor. The invitation was meant to provide an entrepreneurial tour, as well as getting to know about the company’s background story and business in general. It was a valuable experience for us and we learned a lot from the trip.
Gesine: we met Rene Müller Iryna’s husband from Mercedes and he immediately told us that he wished his staff would be as open-minded and curious. Obviously our 20 students asked many quality questions – this made us proud again and it is actually the feedback we receive so very often about our students.
This makes THE DIFFERENCE!
Bogor Tours Outing
One of our internship programs, Bogor Tours, had an Outing to Pelabuhan Ratu, where they were again invited at Ocean Queen Resort (Thank you, Nick, for being our supporter). The Outing aimed to bond the members and find out about new destinations that could be interesting for Bogor Tours customers. Led by Mira as the counselor, the outing took three days. In addition, the students, of course, practiced their English
Mira M. Lay
Mira’s contract as a volunteer of AVID program (Australian Volunteer International Development) at our foundation was to come to an end in December. Luckily her program has supported and approved her extension until April 2018. She is an enthusiastic person who has been working hard to help our organization shine and progress, specifically in building the capacity of YCM’s team to successfully design, lead and implement the YEIP project that is funded by the CGS grant. Further to that, she has also assisted Bogor Tours Program in business development and tour guide training. Mira is a real networker which is very important for YCM.
Warm regards from Ronald, Gesine and all Yayasan Cipta Mandiri family.