Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Sekolah Cerdas (Smart School) #1

Smart School is a partnership program organized by Peace Generation Indonesia, LazisMu (Lembaga Zakat, Infaq and Shodaqah) Muhamadiyah and MDMC (Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center). This project aims to educate the public, especially schools about both natural and social disasters. CERDAS stands for CERia (cheerful), DAmai (peace), and Siaga Bencana (Disaster alert).

The program of Smart School was designed very intensively. There was a very tight selection process to select the best volunteers to be sent to 5 cities; Nusa Tenggara Timur, Maluku, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and Cianjur for 3 months. From approximately 200 applicants, only 10 people were selected, then they had to take a 10-day quarantine process (24 October – 2 November 2018) to be trained about the material and skills related to handling disasters caused by nature as well as receiving the material and skills on how to handle social disasters by learning 12 basic values of Peace.  They were also equipped with soft skills for self-development by disciplining practicing the Inner development values delivered by friends from Initiatives of Change Indonesia. They learned to understand the importance of reflection and self-evaluation by always listening to their inner-voice, elaborating and getting to know themselves more deeply, learning the importance of forgiveness and moral values for life such as honesty, purity, unselfishness and love.

After the completion of the service (3 months), they returned to the quarantine site and did the re-orientation, reflected on what had been done, evaluated everything that had been done and shared their experiences. No less important was their personal change story, not only changing themselves, but also society where they served. The small contribution to change in the country is very effective and it has a domino effect.

They passed the challenges they faced very well. Many of them shared how the soft skills they acquired during the quarantine process helped them overcome the problems for 3 months; gained society’s trust, understood the new environment, and finally they succeeded in all the programs.

Testimony from the participants:

In my opinion, the morning reflection and peace family sessions were interesting because in this session we are invited to get to know ourselves more closely and accept ourselves as we are. In this session we were also invited to listen rather than talk. Listening is not just using ours ears but trying to use the heart. Of course this is very useful when we are in assigned places so that our hearts become stronger and able to be happy unconditionally (Dwi Wulan from Medan, assigned place in Cianjur).

The morning reflection and peace family session for me was an interesting session because I was invited to struggle with myself, chat, listen with the deepest heart, and make peace with myself. The benefit I got was that I understood what was actually in my heart. Before making peace with other people I had to make peace with myself first (Depri Adri from East OKU Timur, South Sumatera, assigned place in Yogyakarta).

Morning reflection was to start the morning and the peace family at the end of the night, was a complete package that made the process of the day more organized, if something happened that was not expected I could be more accepting and able to deal with the situation in a good way. . Here I also learned to share stories to other people (outside the family) and I found it comfortable (Weti Artika from Palembang, assigned place in Yogyakarta).

Reported by Nenden Vinna Mutiara Ulfa