Written by Dara Ayu Ariane, Content Writer Intern at Project Child Indonesia
It’s easy to feel a little aimless amid the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic. If you’re looking for a sense of purpose, maybe it is time to consider volunteering! You probably have a certain image in mind when it comes to volunteering: beach clean-ups or traveling to different parts of Indonesia to hand out social aid. Many of those in-person volunteer opportunities are tricky to do considering the health protocols, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make an impact. Luckily, for this edition of PCI Feature we had an amazing chat with Jasmine Azalia Daniswara on her experiences of online volunteering for Project Child Indonesia!
An Impactful Individual
As a 6th semester university student majoring in Primary Teacher Education, Jasmine first applied to be an online volunteer out of curiosity. Spare time becomes a common occurrence once her university lectures transition to online-based. This makes online volunteering for Project Child Indonesia’s Online Learning Assistance program sound like the perfect opportunity, “Instead of constantly watching Korean drama when I’m free, why not utilize the knowledge I’ve been learning during university to teach the kids at Sekolah Sungai!”.
With her previous offline volunteering experience, Project Child Indonesia’s online volunteering opportunity truly piqued her interest and Jasmine was set on gaining new experiences, “While I have the time, knowledge, and interest, why should I miss out on this great opportunity? It is such a positive experience, not just for me, but also for the kids at the river communities. There are so many advantages we all can take from this online volunteering opportunity!”
An Impactful Program
“Volunteering online isn’t as easy as it seems, especially when it comes to teaching kids. But it enables me to improve myself even more and ensure that I provide the kids with the best form of educational learning,” shared Jasmine when asked about her thoughts on the volunteering program so far. In addition to that, Project Child Indonesia provides the volunteers training beforehand that certainly helps with developing educational materials that can attract the children’s attention during learning sessions.
Jasmine is glad to know that the children at Sekolah Sungai have diverse aspirations, even to the point where one of the kids aspire to become a Youtuber, “In my experience of volunteering, because it usually happens in remote places, the children’s aspirations were still very limited to doctors, soldiers, and teachers. I’m very happy to see that with this Online Learning Assistance program, we are broadening the children’s knowledge even more!”
She is also thrilled by the children’s enthusiasm throughout the program. Most of the kids would study until the very end of the class with no complaints and answered all the quizzes with the same amount of eagerness as the beginning of the class. “When I teach, the children are active and they even laugh occasionally. It makes me really happy to see their desire to learn, even though watching cartoons at home instead can be equally as fun.”
Jasmine also shared that while we have the time, we shouldn’t hesitate on using it to be useful and make a positive impact for those in need, “Maybe for us, our spare time may not mean much. Yes, we can use that time to chill at a cafe, but wouldn’t it be even more amazing to do what we can and help others? Not only are we saving money, we also get pahala!”
If you’re also interested in making an impact on others during these difficult times, don’t forget to follow Project Child Indonesia’s Instagram account to keep updated on the next Volunteer program! Don’t forget and keep believing that “everyone can do good”!
