Help Promote Good Reading Habits in Kalimantan

At the beginning of the year, we proceeded to the reorganization of the YUM Kalimantan Library. Now, half a year later, we are able to evaluate its performance. All activities have been set; 10 minutes reading is a must before starting any other activity in the day; a Dance Club has been implemented: now children can learn traditional dances – especially Dayak dances which are original from Borneo (Kalimantan). Children have much fun through games and others while learning English in the English Club and in the Arts and Crafts lesson where children’s creativity has been arisen by exploring new ways of media in their works. Children are happy and satisfied with all these improvements.

One of the important events of the Library is the celebration of a Creativity Day which itwas held in July 2014. The Creativity Day is aimed to increase children's creativity and facilitate children to explore their hidden talents through competitions and performances. The theme of the Creativity Day was this time “Friendship” in order to unify a wide range of cultural differences and avoid conflict in Kalimantan, because its inhabitants come from different ethnics: Javanese, Balinese, Dayak, and others.

The competitions were held from 18^th to 20^th July, 2014 with 13 types of competitions: drawing, coloring, singing, poetry reading, make up, writing a short story, creativity, Photoshop, tug of war, marble and spoon race, sack race, pencil in a bottle and family football competitions. About 120 participants from toddlers to adults enlivened the competitions.

On July 20^th, 2014 the main event was held with more than 150 participants who got together to watch the performance of modern and traditional dances, followed by a make up competition, fun games and also the most expected: announcement of the Winners and distribution of the Awards. Everyone was very interested in celebrating the Creativity Day and the feeling of friendship was present among all participants despite their cultural differences.

Thanks to GlobalGiving’s supporters and friends, we had the opportunity to entertain the community, as well as to promote YUM’s activities in Kalimantan. Thank You!

During the past 3 months, the YUM Kalimantan Library has been reorganized in order to increase our services to the children and the wider community in Kalimantan. The daily activities schedule, the books collection and the equipment became our priorities since these are the main facilities provided for visitors. Therefore, Isna (the YUM librarian) was helped by a volunteer from Belgium, Margot Depraetere, to reorganize the library, especially by managing the books collection.

They checked the numbers and the types of books, sorted old/not worth reading books, deleted the sorted books from the library system Athenaeum Light 6 and sorted the books on shelves in accordance to each category, ranging from small to large numbers to simplify finding books. Old books but still worth reading were given to the children, some school books were given to schools around YUM Kalimantan or saved in a storage. We also bought around 137 new books in Jakarta, especially the most favorite books. Hopefully through reorganizing the library, we can attract more visitors to visit the library.

In May, we also restocked the equipment needed for the daily activities in the library, such as drawing books, water color paint, crayons and color pencils for drawing and coloring activities; origami paper, ribbon, paraffin, etc. for arts and crafts activities; pens, pencils, erasers, etc. for stationeries; CDs, VCDs and DVDs and more.

In addition, we started to teach a traditional local dance from Kalimantan to the children, called Dayak Dance. The dance class is taught by Ibu Endah, a teacher from Bina Cita Utama School in Kalimantan who had already taught Dayak dances to other groups and even won some competitions. We hope that through the traditional dance class, we can teach the children to love their own culture.

Hopefully, by reorganizing the library, we can attract more visitors to come and enjoy the library activities. Thank you for your support to make our dream come true to help increase children’s quality of education in Kalimantan. Thank you!