When asking the local community about what they most wanted their kids to receive help with from the ILC, the resounding response was for them to learn English.

We are so fortunate to have the incredible Miss Dian onboard for another year, whose passion and skill is in teaching English. She is currently running her “Everyday English” class once a week. What began with 8-15 kids attending each session has now grown into having between 20-30 students each week!

We are also very pleased to have Miss Nadia with us this year, who has relocated her family from Jakarta to be part of our project and community. She is currently running an Advanced English class once a week, and has between 10 and 20 students coming to each session.

Also new to the project this year is Miss Ita, who along with Miss Nadia is running a weekly “Helping with Homework” class.

This has proved to be really popular and has a great uptake. It’s wonderful to see the kids so invested in their educations.

These sessions are run once a week in the early afternoon, allowing a dedicated time for the local children (who finish their school day at 12) to come together with the local international students and get creative.

It is hugely popular and it’s so lovely to see the kids all coming together to enjoy the activities on offer.

Run once a week by Miss Ita, this session was added because there were some children who wanted to attend the English classes, but they didn’t have a basic grasp of reading and writing. So Miss Ita stepped up and created a course that will give them this foundational knowledge of reading and writing, with the aim of them eventually being able to join the English classes.

These classes run weekly and they follow the brilliant Common Seas curriculum from their free education kits for elementary kids. You can read more about them here: https://encounteredu.com/teacher-resources/oceans-for-beginners-x-curric-ages-5-7

We run them each Wednesday and they are one of our combined classes that bring the local Indonesian kids and the local international kids together to learn.

As part of our weekly Environmental Classes we have re-introduced a monthly “clean up”. Sometimes this will be organised by the students, other times by staff or volunteers. Our first one was in June and it was organised by a board member in collaboration with Boa Primary School. All the kids had a quick lesson together first and then everyone walked through the village and collected lots of bags of rubbish. It’s a great way to bring awareness to just how much plastic is used and not disposed of properly, and is also a nice way to get the whole community together, working as one.

The ILC has for the past three years collaborated with Swim-in-aid (supported by Swimdo) to help enable an introductory water safety and rescue class for local children.

The class teaches children how to manage themselves effectively in the water, and how to help others who are in trouble.

We are hoping it will go ahead again this year to be rolled out to even more kids.

All of last year we had the pleasure of working with a local lady, Ibu Victoria, who came to the centre once a week to teach the children about traditional ikat weaving.

Local Indonesian children were invited to attend alongside the local International kids, and it was a great success. It was wonderful to see so many of the younger generation being engaged in learning together about this skillful traditional craft, and also to learn just how much time and effort goes in to making these beautiful textiles.

Last year some of the international students had an enquiry unit based on learning about plastic and its effect on the environment. Although we as a center organise many beach cleans throughout the year, this one was really led by the children themselves, and had an enormous turn out.

The students planned, advertised and came up with ideas for prizes to incentivize people to take part. And the results were incredible. Some kids were so keen they turned up hours before the start time to get a head start and we had to organise a bigger truck to take all of the rubbish away at the end.

Also as part of the beach clean project the children all wrote letters to a local government official explaining their project, and asking for help to to advertise the clean up to the local community.

These courses ran weekly in 2022 and 2023, with three subjects being covered: Kitchen Hygiene and Maintenance; Food Safety Practices; and Customer Service. The hospitality and hygiene classes were created from material from the William Angliss Institute Cert III course in Hospitality, and were translated into Indonesian.

In 2024 we were lucky enough to be visited by the incredible Jo Royle. Jo has dedicated her life to working to try to save our oceans from plastic. Not only did she sail across the Atlantic in a boat made entirely of recycled plastic in her early 20’s to raise awareness, but she also started up the charity Common Seas, who wrote and provided the free curriculum for our Environmental Classes. She has pioneered research into micro plastics in human blood, and continues to work tirelessly to make a difference.

The kids absolutely loved hearing her talk about her various projects, work and adventures and it was perfect timing as they were in the middle of an Inquiry Unit named “Pollution Solutions for Rote Island”.