NEWS February 2010
Dear friends and sponsors of YCM!
(written by Ibu Gesine on 18.01.2010)
I wish you a happy and healthy New Year! This week I spend in Bogor at YCM and as always I really enjoy to participate in the activities and to observe the development of the individual students. As the Kindergarden of Thorsten’s former company was moved to another place our YCM now use the whole building. We occupy 2 floors. It was high time for the sewing workshop to get another room as we have many students and 13 machines (different sewing machines, embroidery, …) The four boys who are permanently living with us could finally have their own room! Three more classrooms give relieve to the teaching situation. But we will have higher costs and more work to organize everything and keep the clean standard, of course. Some renovation and changes have to be made. Anyhow we are all very happy about this much space!
Last week I finally got the information about the final registration of our German Foundation “Verein der Freunde der YCM e.V.” and it is accepted as charitable (non-profit) ‘Stiftung’ in Germany. So in future we can hand out donation receipts that are accepted by the German Finance Department. This is a big step.
Again some long time students will leave us next week: they are accepted at IGTC, the garment vocational education center. IGTC provides a very professional education for the garment industry as you hardly find elsewhere in Indonesia. We are happy that some of our students regularly pass the tests, get sponsored and later on find good jobs!
A ‘Thank you’ to ‘Weihermattenschule’ and ‘Kindergarten Schmusebacke’ for their support and donations!
February 28th : This visit proved to me that the daily life and organization on two floors is different and needs improvements, changes, adjustments. But no questions! It is great to have more space. On 26th we invited alumni and students and friends for the opening party. All morning we cooked and prepared food for around 250 people. These events are as motivating for new students as for the tutors and myself. We get the proof that our alumni had great benefit from their time at YCM. If I spend my time here in Bogor the days pass so quickly and I fly back with a happy heart and soul.
Tovan will move to Sumatra and work at a textile factory; Gozin will move to Kalimantan to work at a plantation were his uncle organized a job for him – GOOD LUCK. Gesine
February was a short month but very busy nevertheless we all had lots of fun this month! Well.. lets begin shall we.
To open this month we are proud to inform you that the new Student Council was elected on February 5th. It was a tough competition. Unlike previous elections, where we had an open debate among our candidates. This time we tried to bring up the students leadership quality by dragging four chairs up to the front of the class and let the students who have the leadership quality to sit on them. It was not an easy job, we had to wait a few minutes before finally somebody was brave enough to stand up. Those four students who sat on the chairs were the candidates for the new Student Council. We had eight candidates.
I can say that this election was the most interesting and awakening because for the first time there were two elementary students to stand up and were willing to take the responsibility without anyone telling them to. We as tutors are very proud of Qais and Ryu; Miss Putu and Bunda Nur even had tears in their eyes..and finally Ase won as the new president of students council.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK QAIS AND RYU.. WE ARE PROUD OF YOU!!!
After a long day tutors decided to entertain the students by a global knowledge competition; BOYS ( Apry, Kohar, Jascha, Ono and Stefan) VS GIRLS (Bella, Havni, Jennifer, Nur and Putu) and of course the GIRLS team knocked the BOYS out. GIRLS RULE!
February also known as the month of romance therefore we put Valentine’s day on our agenda. The elementary students wrote valentine cards for someone special to them and the older students learned about the day and tried to separate facts and myths about its history.
Unfortunately Jascha and Stefan had to leave us on Tuesday 16th for Singapore to take care of their Visas but they came back to YCM on Monday with plenty of Singapore experiences to share with the students.
Two of our sewing class students (Merry and Agis) and their tutor (Atik) have started training at a local garment company, Asmara, for the next two months. We hope they get valuable experiences from the training.
In the last week of February we had Motivation & Leadership Week. Our goal was to motivate the students to increase their qualities and teamwork by empowering them with motivational words, stories and games. They seemed to enjoy it and took lessons from every session with each tutor. We finished the week on Thursday with group activites to teach problem solving, cooperation and communication.
On Friday 26th we had lunch with all the members of Yayasan and Alumni. To end our perfect day the elementary had their global knowledge competition where tutors and older students asked questions. Three teams competed and ‘Albert Einstein’ team won the game.
On Saturday 27th we held a cross country morning to end our Motivation & Leadership Week! Ono and Apry arranged the track and prepared the challenges for the students who really enjoyed participating. It was a fun way to teach team work and cooperation through different physical activities. Well done everyone! Afternoon; 6 footsal games for the competition of 16 teams from outside; also the communities: music, art, web, chess…
What a big month! We thank you again for the support you give us in many different ways, from friends all over the world. We have many new students in the last month, which is great to see. We welcome eager youth who are willing to learn and improve themselves.
Warmest Regards,
Written by Mrs. Gesine, Miss. Bella and Miss. Jen.
