Culture exchange through letters

Written by Petricia Andini Hutasoit (BNF’s Education staff)

Happy New Year everyone! 2017 was a great year for the Education Programme and 2018 is looking like it will be awesome. New year, new hope, new activities for the Education Programme, especially Anak Sebangau (meaning ‘Children of the Sebangau Forest’). Anak Sabangau is starting out their activities in 2018 with excitement. They will learn about the environment by different themes every month such as Gardening, using natural resources for ART, zero waste management and many more. After these lessons,  they will be participating in excursions to some new places related to the themes.

Furthermore, Anak Sebangau was very enthusiastic when they received letters from PEEP (Pelangi Education and Environmental Programme) Bali. This is a pen pal project that began last year between Anak Sebangau and the PEEP children.  The project aim is to improve children’s literacy through writing letters. PEEP’s children wrote a letter about themselves and sent it to Anak Sebangau, with some questions about Anak Sebangau, questions about what Palangka Raya looks like and drawings.  Anak Sebangau replied with their own questions and explained where they lived, sending some drawings along as well.

Anak Sebangau will also be writing letters to a school from Australia to promote cultural exchange. Together with these letters will be drawings and some material that represents their culture.  This package will be sent to Australia and then returned back to Anak Sebangau.

This project will improve the children’s communication, social and handwriting skills and imagination by encouraging children to write letters from an early age. Moreover, this will also help build their character and build relationships with children from different backgrounds.