TIF Highlights: September to November 2025

Quarterly Update

We may be approaching the end of 2025, but we’re only halfway through our academic and financial year - and it’s been a busy quarter for The Island Foundation. Over the past three months, students in our Learning Centres embraced zero-waste habits and explored mangrove habitats through classroom lessons and a hands-on mangrove planting excursion. We also ran two four-day cycles of teacher training, introducing a new focus on climate-focused education, strengthened by the support of two new government partnerships. In the wider community, we explored potential new programs, including a Mobile Learning Program and an initiative for university students.

2024 - 2025 Annual Report

Our Annual Report for the 2024-25 financial year has just been published. As Courtney, our Executive Director puts it in her introduction message, “this year has been one of meaningful progress and deepened collaboration across our Learning for Sustainability program. From our Learning Centres to our Teacher Training and Community Engagement work, we have strengthened the learning ecosystems that help children grow with confidence, curiosity, and cultural pride.” The full report can be downloaded here.

Learning Centres

Learning Centre Highlights

From September through October, our Learning Centres moved into a new unit: “Embracing a Zero-Waste Life.” Students learned what waste and pollution mean, how to sort waste properly and why our daily habits matter for the environment. Through hands-on activities like composting, recycling and upcycling, they transformed old materials into useful items - from keychains made of recycled plastic to eco-friendly crafts and reusable products. The term culminated in a non-plastic bazaar organized by students, encouraging sustainable living and community awareness. It’s fantastic to see more children bringing reusable water bottles to class following the end of this unit.

In November, our learning focus shifted to the coastal environment: students delved into mangrove ecosystems through a unit titled “Living Creatures and Habitats in the Mangrove System,” culminating in a learning-centre led mangrove-planting field trip (see below).

Altogether, in Q2 we delivered 739 classes and 1,109 hours of teaching to the 560 students enrolled across our 13 Learning Centres.

World Clean Up Day

In September, we marked World Clean Up Day across our Learning Centres. Around 250 students joined by 200 parents and local stakeholders gathered for an educational session on waste decomposition, pollution, and the impacts of microplastics. After the session, everyone rolled up their sleeves and cleaned the Learning Centres and nearby coastal areas.

Thanks to their collective effort, the group collected 1,011 kg of waste - a tangible contribution toward cleaner, healthier coastal communities, and a powerful demonstration of shared environmental responsibility.

Mangrove Planting

In November, we held a mangrove-planting session. A total of 181 students participated, representing many of our learning centres. Through this hands-on experience, students deepened their understanding of how mangroves protect coastal ecosystems, prevent erosion, and sustain biodiversity.

We plan to monitor the planted mangroves to ensure growth and survival. From this we can learn where are suitable areas to continue our efforts, and where a places to avoid.

Teacher Training

Local Teacher Training

In November, we delivered two 4-day cycles of our Local Teacher Training (LTT) program: one in Bintan and one in Lingga, the regency south of Bintan. Across both trainings, nearly 100 teachers participated, with exceptional attendance and strong support from local education leaders.

A highlight of this round was the introduction of climate change education as a new focus within the Deep Learning module. Teachers engaged enthusiastically with the content and explored practical ways to integrate environmental themes into their own classrooms. In upcoming sessions, we will build on this momentum by supporting teachers to develop climate-related lesson plans and assessment approaches, continuing our effort to strengthen sustainability-driven teaching practice.

New Agreements with Government Partners

This quarter marked a major milestone for our work in Indonesia. Yayasan Peduli Kepulauan Indonesia (YPKI), our implementing partner, formalised two significant partnerships through Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with:

• The Office of Teachers and Education Personnel (KGTK), and

• The Lingga Regency Education Office.

The agreement with KGTK is especially notable. In simple terms, KGTK is the government unit that connects schools, districts, and national policy on teacher development. Establishing a formal partnership at this level not only validates the quality and relevance of our work but also opens the door to far greater collaboration, alignment with national priorities, and long-term impact.

The second MoU, with the Lingga Regency Education Office, reinforces our long-standing partnership in the region and strengthens the foundation for continued collaboration on teacher development, capacity building, and education quality initiatives.

Together, these agreements represent a huge step forward in deepening institutional support, expanding influence, and ensuring our programmes are integrated within Indonesia’s broader education ecosystem.

Community Engagement

Exploring the Concept of a Mobile Learning Program

In November, ahead of the north monsoon season, Tintin visited five communities across Lingga and Batam to reconnect, share updates and gather feedback on the Mobile Learning Program we have been co-designing over the past 12 months. Mobile Learning seeks to bring learning opportunities directly to communities, rather than requiring learners to travel to a fixed school or centre. It is especially valuable in areas where access to formal education is limited, such as remote islands, and where communities are semi-nomadic.

To date, the response from communities has been overwhelmingly positive, with many expressing strong enthusiasm for the program’s launch. During these visits, we identified five potential field learning assistants who could support the program from its early stages. We hope to invite them to Bintan early next year to learn more about our approach and contribute to the next phase of programme design.

Tintin with a school class and Ibu Lili who is an Orang Suku Laut primary school teacher

Community Service Learning Program

This quarter, we also met with Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji (UMRAH), a university in Bintan, to explore how we could work together on a pilot Community Service Learning (CSL) program. A collaboration between UMRAH, TIF and our community partners, CSL seeks to provide undergraduates with hands-on experience while earning academic credit, to support TIF to strengthen learning opportunities and outcomes for our students, teachers and stakeholders, and to bring in direct assistance and project innovation to communities facing sustainability challenges.