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[REPORT] ON|OFF CHAT SOLO 2011: Knitting Ideas for Indonesia’s Education (2)

After the inspiring conversation with Pak Agus on the previous post, Mbak Ainun also share her positive thoughts about reaching your dream

AINUN CHOMSUN: GIVE LEGS TO YOUR DREAM

Mbak Ainun started the Akademi Berbagi movement because she believes that knowledge could be shared for free. “Being smart is expensive, but being dull-witted is even more expensive,” said the mom of one. Because of this concern, Mbak Ainun started the concept of Akademi Berbagi on Twitter.

The idea is simple: to find a field of knowledge that people on Twitter want to learn more about – and find a teacher who could teach a certain field of knowledge and willing to teach it for free, then find a place to hold the “class” for free. All this is done on Twitter. “You just have to ask, what do you want to learn, who’s the teacher, and then ask on Twitter whether she/he wants to teach for free,” said mbak Ainun.

It is from here that Akademi Berbagi becomes a free knowledge-exchange platform, open for anyone, as long as there’s still seat available. Berbagi bikin happy – or Sharing brings happiness is the tagline for our friends at Akademi Berbagi. Even though each are busy with their work and still have to take care of the Akademi Berbagi classes, everyone’s doing it happily.

At this point, Akademi Berbagi has spread to many cities in Indonesia, and soon will spread to Singapore! Mbak Ainun’s belief that knowledge could be shared for free really comes true.

“And this is all thanks to social media,” said Mbak Ainun. “Everything started on Twitter.”

Mbak Ainun even told us that she just received an email from Putera Sampoerna, the legendary successful businessman, because he heard about her activity in the education world through social media. “I was so happy and very surprised, off course!” said Mbak Ainun.

Mbak Ainun then repeat the message that her father gave her: In this world, nothing is impossible. There’s only either you want it or you don’t want it. If you want it, it’s possible!

“If you have a dream, give legs to your dream, so that your dream can step on the earth,” said Mbak Ainun.

IDEAS FROM SOLO

After being inspired by Pak Agus and Mbak Ainun, the participants were divided into groups to start ‘knitting ideas’. They are asked to discuss about education problems in Indonesia, and using social media and technology to help solve the problems. The discussion went very well, fun, and warm. During the discussion, Pak Agus, Mbak Ainung, and Chairwoman ON|OFF 2011, Ollie, help facilitated and answered questions from the participants.

And, these are the great ideas that come from Solo!

• There are several problems related to childrens’ right in education, for example, due to the distant location of schools, inadequate class capacity, economic factor, and corruption. We want to create a blog to address these problems, and communicate it to the government/bureaucrat so that they are aware of these problems. Next, cooperate with the government so that we could communicate ideas to solve these problems. The government can support us to realize the ideas, and we can watch the government and what they’ve done through the blog #educationforallchildren

• There are a lot of education material that is irrelevant with the regional situation and lacking local context. This makes the knowledge learned difficult to apply in the native region, and cause many people go to the cities. We have to start creating education material that is relevant to the students real life in the native region. One of them, creating audio book together with teachers or informal leader in the local society, to share knowledge in local context. This audio book can be spread through local radios. | #groundingknowledge

• There are a lot of vocational school graduates who face difficulties in getting job and starting their own business. Use Facebook and Twitter to connect these vocational school graduates with the businessmen/investor. On the other side, set up a free offline class for vocational school graduates so that they can learn to create a business plan and financial plan. The business plan can then be uploaded, and we reconnect them with the businessmen/investor, so that their business plan could be realized.

• Nowadays, the amount of knowledge keeps increasing, and we’re busy running after that knowledge. But many forget that “down below” there are still many people who cannot access this knowledge. We can use social media to find people who are willing to teach directly for free. We can also inform other people about places where people can learn/use learning facility for free

• There are many hobby communities in Indonesia. The problem is, their knowledge is seemingly exclusive for internal use – for those who are in the same community, and not shared widely to others outside the community. We can use social media to connect carious hobby community. Each hobby community can write or videotape their knowledge regarding certain thing (e.g.: how to sew, play skateboard), so that anyone can read/watch the video and learn from there.

• There are still members of the society who has limited access to technology, such as the street kids, inmates, and housewife. We can create Community Portal that aims to give assistance for them. Through this online portal, we will find people and/or experts who are willing to share their knowledge/provide assistance for free to the street kids, inmates and housewife.

• Environmental education is one important factor that we should pay attention to. Bagimu Bumi Kami Berbagi – For Earth We Share – is a program to help realize environmental education in formal schools. By using social media, we can engage partnership and cooperation with environmental organization, NGO, schools and government, to support this program.

• Education still could not reach areas that are too distant. One thing that we could do is connect ideas, creativity and potential from students with those who can make it true or support it. It could be done online – we spread the idea and creativity through social media, so that other people in the other area will know about it.

• Many foreigners still don’t know about our nation’s potential. Therefore, we start the Proud Indonesia project to promote Indonesia to foreigners. We will publish online, all things that we are proud of in Indonesia. Not only that, we can also invite them to ask questions or share their stories, so that we can improve ourselves while educating them about Indonesia.

Very outstanding and inspiring ideas from Solo! From the many ideas presented, idea no. 3 to connect vocational school graduates with businessmen/investor was the chosen idea in ON|OFF CHAT Solo. The participants in this group: Darma Agung S. I, Amri F. Handitya, Arif Rohmadi, and Bagus Abdurrahman W; received certificate of appreciation from ON|OFF CHAT and a 1-month counseling with Pak Agus, Mbak Ainun and Ollie, to help make their idea come true!! Congratulations!!