Students make dreams happen

Education

(Cortesy of BIS)

What happens when a small group of International Baccalaureate students get together to talk about how they can respond to some of the needs in their community?

A school for children in need – that’s what happens.

The British International School’s IB CAS team, which first proposed the idea of building the school, won top honors in the UNESCO-DaimlerChrysler Mondialogo School Contest in Rome in November 2006, for coming up with the best initiative in social activism.

The idea has also attracted some very important partners: 15 like-minded students at a partner school in Trento, Italy, who helped raise funds for school supplies, and enthusiastic activists here in Indonesian who belong to mAAN, the Modern Asian Architecture Network.

David Sagita and Felicia Djajadi, young architects with a strong social mission, assisted students in the design stages. They came to BIS every Friday week after week to oversee the students as they drew sketches, added details to their plans and constructed cardboard models of what they hoped might pass for a school!

Then Mr. Ahmed Djuhara, internationally renowned architect and mAAN member, joined the students, giving generously of his time and expertise to ensure the rough sketches and models could become a reality.

Djuhara helped transform the students' models into a computer-aided design of the school. At that moment the students knew, their ideas could work!
The project received financial support from Daimler-Chrysler of Indonesia. Mr Wim Ekel, Senior Officer, Corporate Communications and Mr. Yuniadi Hartono, Deputy Director Marketing and Communication, encouraged the students when they visited to see how their ideas were progressing.

The easy-to-assemble structure was erected first at BIS before it was taken on a flatbed truck to the intended site where the real work would begin: supporting basic education for some of Jakarta’s children in need.

But even at this stage of the school building project, every BIS high schooler on the team could place their hand on the school and say, “I had a part in this. I can help make things better.”

(Ankush Sharda wrote this piece while he was in year 12 at British International School. He is currently reading accounting and finance in Berkeley Universities US)