Fulfilling Her Promise of Education

KOMPAS/CORNELIUS HELMY HERLAMBANG

Sawinah

As a teacher, Sawinah, 53, strives to fulfill her promise to educate students, whatever the circumstances. The disaster that recently struck Central Sulawesi has again tested her dedication.

At 11:00 a.m. Indonesia Central Standard Time on Monday (22/10/2018), teaching and learning activities ended for the day at SMPN 21 Petobo state junior high school in Palu, Central Sulawesi. Post-disaster school hours start at 8:00 a.m. and last only three hours. No formal education materials are available to provide to the students. There are no books. Only a few students wore uniforms. Teacher-student interactions focus on alleviating the students’ trauma. One activity carried out routinely each morning is an earthquake emergency drill in which the students flee the buildings and run out into an open field.

However, Sawinah\'s work day was not over. After locking the school gates, her daughter, Cahya Azalika, arrived on a motorcycle to pick her up. Even the 33-degree-Celsius heat of the Palu afternoon was unable to quash her spirit. The nearest evacuation center is located about 300 meters from the school.

"After the disaster, I travel to the evacuation centers nearly every day in search for students who have not come back to school. Of the 190 students, only around 90 have returned. Six students were killed in the disaster," she said.

She knows which students haven\'t returned to school. Through social media and diligently asking everyone she knows, she has learned which students remain outside Central Sulawesi where they and their families fled, and which ones are still in Palu. Patiently, she visits the emergency tents where many Petobo residents still live. The dust and flies at the evacuation centers do not bother her.

"Well, I found one here," Sawinah said as she came across 13-year-old Pardi, an eighth grader who was waiting for the distribution of basic needs a relief aid donor had provided.

"Why haven\'t you come back to school?" asked Sawinah.

”I don’t have a uniform, ma’am,” said Pardi. His uniform was lost when the liquefaction destroyed his family’s house.

"Just wear whatever you have. I teach in a housedress,” said Sawinah, pointing to the housedress she wore with sweatpants.

”Yes ma’am, I’ll come to school tomorrow,” Pardi replied, shyly.

However, Sawinah’s efforts are not all successful. She was unable to locate several students at the evacuation centers. Several others had left to join their relatives outside Petobo. Others are being treated at hospitals.

”At least they survived the disaster,” she said.

Fellow survivors

Sawinah is no more fortunate than other survivors. A wall of her house collapsed in the earthquake. She fled to her brother\'s house, where she lives in a tent in the yard. However, her dedication as a teacher keeps her working despite her own misfortunes.

Not wanting to prolong her misery, she picked herself back up three days after the disaster. Sawinah started venturing out to compile a record of her students. Her efforts bore fruit: half of the students who came back to school did so as a result of her visits from one emergency tent to the next.

"Maybe it’s because before, I used to go out to find students and invite them to attend school. Eighteen years ago, when I first started teaching at SMPN 21, I traveled around the village with fellow teachers or with my two children [looking for students]," she said.

The areas she visited were sometimes welcoming, but were frequently not. She and her colleagues climbed up and down the steep hills of the village in their quest. Falling off their motorbikes was normal. Going by foot was also normal, because of the limited access to motorized vehicles. Their target was to persuade as many school-aged children as possible to get an education. The trips were financed from their own pockets.

KOMPAS/CORNELIUS HELMY HERLAMBANG

Sawinah (center)

Sawinah admitted that her visits were not all successful. She faced frequent rejection. The parents were more interested in having their children work in the rice fields or help feed the livestock than attend school.

"When meeting that kind of situation, I always tell them that school can make life better. I use myself as an example. In the past, I had to sell fried bananas so I could go to school," said Sawinah, a graduate of the D2 (level-2 associate degree) program at Palu’s Tadulako University.

The result, Sawinah said, was worth it. One by one, new students arrived to her school. In fact, the parents who had initially rejected the idea were later seen picking up their children from the school. In the end, around 100 students accepted the invitation to come to school. Several students have now gone on to become soldiers or have confectionary businesses.

However, her job did not stop at getting students to come to school. She needs to innovate to maintain her students’ motivation and interest. One way she accomplished this was to allow her students to bring their cattle to school. The only requirement was that the cattle must be hitched outside the school fence. The students were able to watch over their livestock while they were at school.

She also encouraged her students to participate in extracurricular activities, assisted by her husband Mappa and their two children. Mappa, now 60, is a former Makassar Scouts instructor. Her two children shared roles as Paskibra (flag raising troop) and Indonesian Red Cross Youth mentors.

"We didn’t want any money," said Sawinah.

She also worked hard to take her students to a variety of junior high school competitions. Not winning was not an issue. The goal was to build the students\' confidence. "This year, we began to make achievements. One of the students won 5th place in Mathematics and Natural Sciences at this year’s National School Olympiad in Palu. It was a very proud moment for us, who come from a village," she said.

Preventing trauma

Self-confidence, said Sawinah, became the main problem she aimed to solve. Her students often felt inferior when they were with children from downtown Palu. Although they live only 10 kilometers from the Palu city center, a kind of gap exists between them. The impact was fatal for some students, who turned to drink, drugs and inhaling glue to feel accepted.

Last year, she put her foot down. She sent 20 students to get urine tests at the Palu branch of the National Narcotics Agency (BNN). A few tested positive for exposure to hazardous substances and were required to receive counseling.

Sawinah said that the students lacked adequate parental guidance. Working as farm laborers, the parents had very little time at home with their children. Ironically, because they were often exhausted from work, the parents lashed out at their children for making mistakes.

"In such situations, it is my turn to go to the parents. I always tell them that their children need love, not beatings," she said.

It was now nearly 2:00 p.m. She had been searching the evacuation centers for three hours and had found four students. They all promised to come back to school.

However, her busy day was not over. Sawinah returned to her own emergency tent to gather the few belongings she had after the disaster. The plan was for Sawinah and her family to move from her brother\'s terrace to the schoolyard.

"I want to be closer to the children. Besides, many of them are still traumatized," she said.

The students welcomed the move from the teacher they idolized. Sawinah has many plans, including one to hold a Quranic recitation every evening. She believed that in approaching the Divine, her students would be given the courage to overcome their ordeals and persevere.

“I don’t want them to stop coming to school because of a natural disaster,” she said.

KOMPAS/CORNELIUS HELMY HERLAMBANG

Sawinah

Born: Palu, June 15, 1965

Education: Associate degree (Level 2) in English Language, Tadulako University, Palu (class of 1987)