My first impression of the project was that it was extremely disorganised. The group experienced desertions from uncommitted members and a lack of vision. And while the previous president, Bianca Siregar, was dedicated and committed, she had difficulty distributing responsibilities to the remaining members. Fortunately, our new teacher supervisor, Michelle, gave us the push we needed to refocus our project and give it direction.

In one of the last sessions, the girls discussed their desires for the future and so we settled on the theme of ‘dreams’ since we knew that many of our students—particularly the girls—were being presented a limited range of future options: mostly housewife or maid. We wanted to encourage them to pursue their hopes and dreams, no matter how ambitious.

However, we were also met with logistical problems such as the loss of our previous teaching location at the village (it had been turned into a rubbish dump, unfortunately). To combat this issue, we shifted the teaching place to our school. This was a vast improvement as lessons could now be held in event of rain. My colleague and co-president Faiq Alfatkh, was able to organise weekly transportation to-from-and-back from school for the kids.

During lessons, we try to be engaging and fun. The kids learned basic English and we use a sticker chart to motivate them. We also watched movies, held pizza parties and used IT to teach the kids. They particularly enjoyed learning to use the iPads. Throughout the year, we got to know the kids better and were able to understand their individual learning needs.

The last lesson was a dance lesson (suggested by one of our students who had a passion for dancing) and we asked Eun Jie and Eun Ah to help us out. We had a very fun last day learning a short routine to Boney M’s ‘Sunny’ and whilst teaching English vocab like step, left, right, jump, turn, shake and point. Finally we ended the day with an informal award ceremony and gift time!

The kids were all given colouring pencils and one of our students, Ririn, who earned the most stickers, was awarded a backpack with school supplies. It was sad to see them all go but fret not—TFI will commence again in August. Having had help from the seniors earlier on in the year, Faiq and I, now run TFI by ourselves. We have successfully completed over 10 teaching sessions and it has been a truly rewarding experience. Being a part of TFI has been one of the highlights of my year and I hope to continue the project next year.