Building a School in NTT

Educational facilities should already include all facilities used to support the educational process, starting from buildings, classrooms, learning tools or media, tables, chairs, and so on. Adequate educational facilities will certainly support the teaching and learning process properly. Unfortunately, there are still many schools in Indonesia that do not have adequate educational facilities or facilities.

To help provide adequate educational facilities, several BINUS SCHOOL Simprug students collaborated with Yasayan Happy Hearts Indonesia to form a Happy Hearts fundraising project to rebuild schools in Kupang, NTT as part of the #iamchange Happy Hearts Indonesia campaign. The BINUS Simprug Happy Hearts team has raised a total of Rp. 370,000,000 which will be distributed to the Cahaya Permata Indonesia PAUD school. Construction is scheduled to start in September and finish around December 2020.

PAUD Cahaya Permata Indonesia is a school that was established in 2007 to provide early childhood education for children in Namosain Village, Alak District, Kupang City. School operations are currently carried out at the school manager’s house. The living room and bedroom are converted into classrooms for 35 pre-school students. Although both classrooms are in good condition, they are not sufficiently sized to comfortably accommodate all students. In addition, students also need additional educational toys and a proper outdoor playground to support their learning activities. Sanitation facilities are also very much needed to help children develop hygienic behaviour.

Based on these conditions, PAUD Cahaya Permata Indonesia needs its own building equipped with adequate furniture, educational toys and a playground to support learning activities. In addition, they also need a proper toilet to create a hygienic learning environment. Then, the funds raised will also provide financial management training, teacher training, and school maintenance training to teachers so that schools can become more independent. In the first 5 years, the school will operate under the supervision of Happy Hearts Indonesia.

The program started in 2019 when a student contacted the organization, Happy Hearts Indonesia, and initiated the idea of ​​starting a Happy Hearts fundraising project together. They formed a committee and launched the project in August 2019 and introduced it to the entire BINUS SCHOOL Simprug community. Even though this project took a lot of time, it did not discourage them from continuing with the Happy Hearts project. After a year of hard work, in August 2020 they managed to raise a total of IDR 370,000,000.

By providing adequate facilities for schools and training them to become independent, Happy Hearts aims to improve access and quality of education for the children of Kupang, NTT, and therefore seek to build and serve the nation.