Indonesia

The biggest flash mob in Indonesia was held on December 11^th 2011 in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. The flash mob participants were partly made up of communities named kakigatel (Itchy feet) flooded around Monas (Monument Nasional, central Jakarta) since 4 o’clock in the morning.

Last Saturday (December 10, 2011), Global Citizen Corps Indonesia leaders with Indonesian Youth Health Ambassadors (IYHA) held a public discussion about HIV & AIDS in Mercy Corps Office Jakarta.

Global Citizen Corps Indonesia leaders: Chyntia, Febrina, Meriny, and Siti have begun an initiative to create KAPELA (Kawan Peduli Belajar), which is a social action group for education under the auspices of GCC Indonesia. KAPELA was founded at Al-Falah School Bantar Gebang, Bekasi –a location in close proximity to a waste disposal sites.

GCC Indonesia and the Indonesian Youth Health Ambassadors organized an action to celebrate The National Month of Dental Health and promote dental health for kids in the suburbs of Jakarta, Pekojan on September 24, 2011.

Forty-nine youth attended the GCC Indonesia Youth Camp to participate in trainings on leadership, global issues and awareness building. The youth participants were selected from among 492 applicants to become GCC Leaders Indonesia for 2011-2012.

When I was young and all the kids in my class wanted to become a doctor or an engineer, I wanted to be a diplomat. I remember when I was in the middle school, I read a featured story in a local newspaper about a bunch of students from all over the world visiting the UN Headquarters in New York. I memorized the different skin colors on the pictures that came with that story.

The Sahabat Seribu Pulau Project, or “Friends of Thousand Islands”, was created by GCC Leaders in Indonesia. Its activity is based on two main objectives, first, to empower local women and girls in Tidung Island, and second, to minimize the gap between urban youth and island youth. The first objective was a collaborative action with the Our World Our Family Program. GCC Leaders managed the entrepreneurship training on how to produce local foods and to market the products as well. This activity was targeted towards young, local women. The training was held for 4 days and 40 participants were invited from the local area.

Global Citizen Corps (GCC) in collaboration with Maluku Economic Recovery Program (MERP) conducted Peace building and Conflict Mitigation Training for Maluku’s Youth leaders. The training was held in Masohi, Seram Island from April 25-29, 2011. The humid and laid-back Seram Island is part of Moluccas Islands, a group of islands made famous to the world by its plants: clove and nutmeg, notably the most important commodities for trading during the era of Western Colonialism. It takes around six hours in total to reach Masohi from Jakarta, three hours by plane and another three hours by boat.

Conflict consists of different layers, starting from individual conflict to conflict between groups of people. The participants learned how to manage individual conflict, handle conflict at larger level by learning how to manage emotion, practice consensus building, and become mediators. The workshop is relevant because almost all participants have experience conflict, from domestic violence to ethno-religion communal conflict that happened in 1999.

Three GCC leaders recognized this lack of information on reproductive health and sex education amongst high school students, especially those living in underprivileged communities. Therefore, they held an information session for female students in one of the poorest schools at Depok. This session was conducted on February 15^th, with 20 girls attending. The 2.5 hour workshop is planned to be conducted continuously for the rest of the month, reaching more students in a wider area.