Attended by over 20 representatives from the Cianjur-Cipanas communities, YUM's two-day Children's Village Strategic Planning Workshop held on 24-25 November 2009 focused on the Children's Village strategic plan to convert the current home for destitute children to a Community Centre.
Key stakeholders, including representatives from the Department of Social Affairs, Save the Children Indonesia and local orphanages and Human Rights associations, were brought together to identify and discuss the current needs of their community. Ultimately YUM aims to develop programs and activities for the new Community Centre that serve the wider community, rather than only children.
One of the highlights of the workshop was the delivery of a presentation by Tata Sudrajat from Save the Children Indonesia, on Child Protection and Care, specifically the welfare of children living in orphanages. As the change in direction of YUM's Children's Village aims to support children through their families, this presentation brought up important issues which needed to be discussed among community representatives regarding how to best serve children and communities in the long run.
"This workshop is very good because it opens our eyes to the developments of the world and provides the chance for all of us to talk, share and discuss what we think and how we can together move forward!"
Lidya, P2TP2A
The workshop was a success as it confirmed the direction of YUM's preliminary strategic planning. The majority of attendees expressed their full support behind the re-direction of YUM's Children's Village and the possible services we may provide.
Thanks to funding received from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in November 2009, YUM will add a splash of color and life to the Children's Village Community Library with new furnishings, books and management resources.
As this is the only library in the area, the upgrades will enable it to better serve the community with easy access to books and many empowering library activities such as creative writing workshops, creative reading and games.
YUM hopes to boost and reinforce the children's academic and personal achievements by promoting regular use of the library whilst stimulating a reading culture.
In addition to the generous support from FES for the Children's Village Community Library, YUM was fortunate to receive a FES Volunteer-intern, 21 year-old Miriam Hoffmann who studies Social Work in Germany.
Impressed after visiting the Children's Village and observing the activities conducted in the Community Library, Miriam implemented a project to empower the youths at the Children's Village to develop creative games by making use of resources at hand.
"We played many games such as Memory, Pantomime and other games using boards and body-action, all of which I had conditioned to be developed by the children themselves and mostly using the English language, so that they could learn the language in a more practical way while having a bit of fun.
I am very happy with how things turned out. The children were very enthusiastic and happy with what we did, and at the end got to learn a very valuable lesson: You don't need money or special materials to come up with a game. With only a creative thought and determination, you can develop your own game!"
Miriam Hoffmann, FES volunteer intern
