Service Learning in Indonesia

The theme of our students services in Indonesia is sustainable development.  Teaming up with students from Duta Wacana Christian University, the students live in 10 hamlets for 3-4 weeks.  They survey, study stacks of documents and produce detailed maps of the hamlets, something that even the government does not have, which the villagers find very valuable.

They study a variety of ways to improve the livelihood of the villagers in a sustainable manner.  They study the supply of water to the hamlets high up in the mountain, to find ways to improve their access to clean water.  They study and propose ways to generate more value from the crops that they grow.  This may involve the making of tasty snacks such as banana chips, and the feasibility of turning it into a business.


I stayed with the students in one of the hamlets.  The conditions were not too much different from the conditions in San Sok in Cambodia (about a week prior).


Early in the morning, I followed the team that went to the local market to investigate the price of various items such as bananas, oils, and fried banana chips.


While there, we also learn a lot about the local diet, such as noodles made from cassava, tofu, and lots of vegetables and fruit.  There is some meat being sold, and mainly chicken.  Here people think nothing of handling live chicken.


We also saw how people squeeze into “minibuses”.  Some of them actually could not, yet still managed to “ride” the minibus.