During Week Without Walls, Year 8 & 9 students learned to contribute and to be caring members of the community by being the reading buddies of students in Badau Public School. In groups of three, they shared reading tips and reading comprehension techniques to Year 3-6 students. Not only did they address the issue of literacy, they also contributed to the environment by cleaning the beach in Pantai Burung Mandi. They also learned a new piece of culturally significant information in Sungai Padang village. Students learned that ‘rebana’ is not just a musical instrument for the people in Belitung. For them, it is a way to do sholawat, a prayer to salute and worship Allah swt.

By Ibu Reni

The Belitung Trip participants departed on 15 September and returned to Jakarta on 19 September. We were welcomed by the peaceful lifestyle and serene scenery characteristic of Belitung while we enjoyed a traditional breakfast of Mi Belitung. The hospitality and sincerity of the local people combined with the fresh ocean breeze helped build enthusiasm and energy among the students, prompting them to engage wholeheartedly with their Service as Action goals. This was evident in the amount of effort they put into cleaning up the beach and mingling with local students during their teaching time in SDN 3 Badau. They supported one another in maintaining their commitment after accepting the challenge to manage their own water bottles as part of an effort to reduce plastic bottle usage during the trip.

Pantai Burung Mandi is where the students first began their beach cleaning project. As part of their efforts, they painted an announcement board to remind visitors to keep the beach clean. Students used Goni sacks instead of plastic bags to collect the trash from the beach and then gathered all the trash in a large rattan bin. The next day, they continued the green living challenge by planting trees in Rimba Alam Conservatory. A surprise to some of the students was that they only served vegetarian food when it was time for a snack. We ended our day by enjoying the sunset at Pantai Gusong Bugis after we had finished planting mangrove trees.

On the third day, students wore their school uniform when they brought books and toys to donate along with teaching supplies. They performed Belitung traditional dance together with the villagers. This is a local tradition to welcome guests. Apparently, this warm reception made the students more confident to interact with the local students while teaching them different kinds of games. On the same day, students got to know about the Tarsius, a small mammal native to the area. They got the chance to play with one of these cute little animals and were sad to hear that it is almost extinct and can only be found in two areas in Indonesia, one of them being Belitung. Afterwards, the students continued to clean up the beach at Pantai Batu Bedil and we ended the day day by enjoying the sunset at Lor In beach. Before we headed back to Jakarta, we enjoyed our last day in Pantai Tanjung Tinggi, where we took pictures of the gorgeous beach and reminisced about our experiences over the past 5 days.