Highlights: February-March 2021
Learning Centres
Covid-19 continues to impact schools in Bintan Regency, but as we reported last month, The Island Foundation is able to hold small group learning sessions with students at all of our eight Learning Centres.
In the slideshow below, Teacher Wahyu begins the session by checking student temperatures and encourages students to wear their face masks, then he takes the group for outdoor and experiential learning, and finishes the session with a review of key learnings underneath the palm trees.
Well done to our team and students for their adaptability and commitment to learning throughout the pandemic!
Local Teacher Training
In February, we were approached by a group of local school teachers to co-design and facilitate professional training sessions for teachers in Bintan Regency, due to the overwhelming lack of professional development opportunities. After initial discussions, we reached out to the University Maritim Raja Ali Haji (UMRAH) to support the delivery of the training sessions, and plan to run the first session in June 2021 with more to come later in the year.
Capacity building
A big thank you to our learning development advisers, Mary Van Der Heijden, Alison Schwartz who continue to support the design of our Learning for Sustainability program through regular training sessions for our team. Throughout February and March, Alison held twice-weekly English language sessions, encouraging the team to have fun with English and sharing tips and tricks for using English in the classroom.
And we are very fortunate to have Rosie Cooper, Learning Programme Developer at the Natural History Museum, UK, join us as a Learning and Engagement Consultant. Rosie has been providing exciting weekly sessions on public speaking, interactive learning and student engagement for the team in Bintan.
Learning farm
In the last newsletter we reported that the Malang Rapat Learning Farm had been hit with floods and fire - we are happy to share that Roni and Tintin have been able to turn things around and are preparing to harvest a range of fruits and vegetables over the coming weeks and months. The team have broken ground on a new Learning Farm at our Kelong Learning Centre - the students are excited to start planting!
Strategy 2021-2025
After a deep dive into our program, extensive surveys with our communities, engagement with partners and internal
deliberations, we are excited to share our new Strategy 2021-2025 that will guide our work over the next five years!
You can find the Executive Summary for download on our website:
Thank you to everyone who participated in the process - we are very proud of the result and looking forward to officially launching the Learning for Sustainability program in the coming months.