Visiting More Schools in Surabaya

James Ogilvie – England

This morning (16/11), we went to SD Santa Theresia 2, where the children were working on painting huge Millennium Development Goals themed murals on fabric. The children were split into 8 groups, each with a different topic, and were asked to draw and paint a picture reflecting their topic. The first thing we did this morning was to organise the paint into small pots for the children to use, and mix up some colours like pink, purple and orange that did not come in the paint pots that they had bought. 

We then ensured that all the children had one of each colour and some brushes and they had prepared what they were going to paint. Some of the children were very talented when it came to drawing and painting, and had created some really nice drawings in draft that they wanted to paint on the murals.

Yusuke joined us again today, which was great, and also Caryn Mc Clelland, Cunsul General of United States in Surabaya, came to the school to help out with the painting. There were many people from the media there and many photos were taken of us helping the children painting the murals. It was really fun and the children also seemed to have a great time. Some of the murals looked really good, and I was really impressed with the children’s attitude as well as their painting skills.

After leaving SD Santa Theresia 2 we went to SMP 27, a junior high school in Surabaya. I’m not quite sure why we went there, but we ended up discussing the turtle program in Meru Betiri National Park and showing the children some photos that were taken on our trip. Yusuke and I talked to them about the trip and about seeing the turtles and they seemed to be very interested by the pictures that were taken.

Next week the children at SMP 27 will hold a video conference with a school in Japan, so the school asked Yusuke to teach the children some Japanese words. I had nothing else to do, so figured I would learn some Japanese too; it was really fun!

Before the end of the day, we went to SD Theresia 1 to make sure everything was set up for tomorrow’s workshop, where we will be having a video conference with some students in a primary school in Japan. We had to make sure Skype was working ok and do a test call with the school in Japan, which Yusuke helped with.