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IHF operates an Education Center in the Indonesian city of Medan.
The IHF Medan Center has the highest number of students attending classes on a regular basis. The centre offers daily English, Computer, and Math classes for students, ranging from SD1 level (first-year primary school) to SMA (senior high school) level. There are also IHF Education Program (TEP) students who live in Patumbak, a small, impoverished village outside of Medan.
Medan is the third-largest city in one of Indonesia’s main islands, Sumatra. The city has diverse communities that reflect its cultural history. Many tribes call Medan home including the Bataknese, Javanese, Melayunese, Chinese, Indian, Acehnese, and Padangnese. No other city in Indonesia has the unique cultural diversity that Medan offers.
Indonesia has a myriad of interesting tourist destinations such as artificial tourism and natural tourism, whatever tourist destinations you choose are all good, but of all that, the most important thing is according to the wishes of the visitors themselves. The city of Medan has artificial tourism in the form of a new recreational park which has recently become the centre of attention. on social media, namely The Le Hu Garden Medan, North Sumatra. Naturally, this tourist park is viral on social media, because it has a garden filled with beautiful flowers and various interesting photo spots.
Travelling doesn’t have to go far just to feel the sensation of a memorable vacation. Tourists who live in Medan can also enjoy the panoramic sensation of the beauty of a large garden filled with flowers. It is enough to visit the Patumbak area, Deli Serdang which is not far from the location of the city centre of Medan, then you can already feel the sensation of the beauty of garden tourism which is soothing to the eyes.
The Le Hu Medan Park is a fun tourist location to visit, there is a wide flower garden consisting of various kinds of flowers and fish ponds, making this park tour in Medan the most exciting place to take pictures and selfies. In addition, The Le Hu Garden recreational park facilities are adequate, such as public toilets, fishing grounds, prayer rooms and food courts.
Family Structure
Many of our students are raised in single-parent families, either by single mothers (whose husbands are deceased) who work as housemaids, pedicab drivers, or other labourers who make below-living wages.
With this type of family structure, it is difficult for people to offer their family financial security, especially when their entire income is solely dependent on whether they are able to find customers each day. Some of the students who attend our IHF Medan Center have no other option but to live with their grandparents after their parents abandon them.
At IHF Medan Center our goal is to help the children from these impoverished families be the next great leaders by expanding their knowledge and confidence through academic and social development. We want to help raise them up to be adults who will be competitive applicants for successful positions that will make a difference within their communities, allowing them to break the poverty cycle once and for all.
As time goes by, we have passed six months of this year. Pandemic is still going on and almost all of our activities are online. This month, our students have had their final examination in their school and a holiday is coming. Our volunteers always try to do their best even though it was so difficult to make a big impact for Medan Center children. But we are so grateful that we can continue and make events for the IHF Medan Center!
As it is still pandemic, we only opened online classes for our children for Junior and Senior High School. This month, our children study English and are taught by our Local Volunteers as their teachers. The class is doing with the Google Meet application.
Book Donations
We are so delighted because we can hold an Open Book Donation event. The purpose of this Book Donation is to expand the ability of literacy and reading habits for children, increase the social awareness of reading importance and widen the academic and intellectual knowledge of children. The -good quality used- donated books later will be useful and helpful for increasing the hype of learning and study class. We happily receive any theme of books, they can be education books, storybooks, novels, psycho test books, motivation books, encyclopedia books, atlas, etc. The Book Donation project will be held from June 1, 2021, to June 20, 2021.
Volunteer Gathering with IHF Indonesia’s Volunteers
What a great gathering that we could meet volunteers of IHF Indonesia from Jakarta, Medan and Bali Center. We did the online gathering but it feels like an offline gathering because we could recognize the IHF team who work and volunteer to make the IHF a better organization to make a big impact in society. We also shared one another and played online games about music. It was so fun!
Medan, April 2022. This month its a holy month of Muslim and we are happy, because we are having Ramadan. Indonesia has many religions living peaceful side by side. It is rare for us to have conflict between religions as in other countries. This month, we Muslim of Indonesia are doing fasting on Ramadan for a month. Our holy Koran teaches us we are not Muslim if we don’t respect all religions and science too. We fast and don’t eat so we remember what it is like to be here bery inside yet have no food. We eat at night so the frail don’t get sick, but during the day when we are used to eating and our hunger calls to us and wants to cheat: this is good, so we never forget and leave out the hungry. We are taught to go hungry and remember them and always share the food and blessings or we are not Muslim. This Ramadan is a beautiful practice and reminder. We are also taught to be only peaceful and not tense or upset during Ramadan. For just this one month, see if you can go a month mot getting angry at anyone. Study the sky, breathe, be peaceful just this month. This is lovely Ramadan.
Around our Medan Center we are looking so busy and having traffic jam some other time because many of people sales some little snack and food for open or break their fasting at night time. Loud and noisy but joyful too. Singing, chatting, prayers. People are coming from anywhere to buy some snack or food they likes.
For classes : We were so happy to be able to start Center Classes again after two years of COVID mandated closed so only online teaching (online impossible for children with no internet). We were going to close classes for Ramadan as normal but the students ask for having these free classes still, even though it’s their holiday and hungry fasting days.
So, even though normally not active during Ramadan month, the English Class on Wednesdays will continue. We are not sure about the other classes as we don’t want to be rude. Also, yesterday we had a visitor at the Medan Center (Adiva Lituhayu and Abizaki Astagina). Both of them are our TEP students. They came with their mom’s for given their thank you letter for their sponsor. It’s a such nice feeling. Having visits at long last from the students– since we had no activities during COVID-19 pandemic at the Medan Center. The government has to do this for so long for our safety but how sweet to slowly see us being able to open again, even if we must keep spaced and only a few. We miss classes of 600 students in person. Online isn’t the same. And as we slowly see each other again in person: such joy.
The bad news is that despite vaccination, distancing, and use of mask -unless being filmed- we still ended up with teachers and several students sick. So far it does not seem to be Covid, but our immune system is not as vibrant as it was before the pandemic and more easily susceptible to flues and colds.
Health and safety must come first despite our eagerness to come back to normal. We will confer with doctors before continuing in-class teaching (hopefully soon).
After finishing the class, the students brought Uncle Deny a cup of coffee and said to me laughing: “This is for you teacher! To make you have more energy!
Such an infinite joy for Deny! Who hopes more and more students will attend!
Our challenge in all of our Indonesian centers, as mentioned many times before, is the impoverished community of children who cannot afford computers or the internet. We are always seeking any donation, of any amount, to help in this very important endeavour.
UNCLE DENY AND THE MEDAN IHF CENTER NEED LOCAL GLD HELPING OUT!
“After a pitch dark night, comes a new beautiful morning” 
– R.A.Kartini-
Raden Ajeng Kartini was born on April 21,1879. Her birthday is then commemorated as Kartini’s Day to honour her services to the Indonesian people. She is a prominent Javanese and national Indonesian hero. Kartini was struggling and fought about feminist matters and revealed her dream of the balance and equality between women and men’s rights in Indonesia, especially in the education section.
Through her courage, she successfully expanded women’s mobility and built free space for women to aspire to their rights. The results of Kartini’s thoughts, resistance, and struggles in the past gave a strong meaning to the modern-day woman
Not only for women, but Kartini’s fighting spirit also Inspires us, women and men, to dare to fight for our dreams and defend those who are oppressed. Are you one of those people of change?
Happy Kartini’s Day! May the spirit of Kartini empowers us to be independent, dedicated, powerful, and unstoppable human being!
Adult classes: Nazifa and Coffeeniatics
The adult online classes are progressing very well, all students are showing great enthusiasm and making great strides. The participants in the Nazifa class are currently reading a book. This improves their reading, spelling skills and sentence construction abilities. During the sessions, we take time to discuss the meanings of certain words and what the particular extract is explaining. Students showcase their reading skills and are impressive.
The participants of the Coffeenatics are mainly focusing on the language structural skills. They are grasping these concepts very well and are eager to learn. We construct challenging worksheets for them and they tackle them with great precision. Credit must go to all that have contributed to helping them thus far, they are doing exceptionally well.
The children’s classes
These classes include Junior High School and Senior High School classes. The children are learning English and personal mentorship. Not much progress has been made as the team is experiencing challenges locating students who have good internet connectivity. However, plans to fundraise for students have been put in place to ensure that no child is left behind. Besides teaching English, we are helping the children by doing mentorships in other areas; time management, career, and building up the motivation are priorities as well as the academic.
Eid al-Adha is celebrated as one of the biggest events in Indonesia, especially in Moslem communities. The act of Qurbani consists of slaughtering an animal as a sacrifice to mark this occasion in remembrance of Prophet Ibrahim’s sacrifice for Allah SWT. This is also known as Udhiya. The days of animal sacrifice total three days, from the 10th to the 12th of Dhu-al-Hijjah.
The Qurbani meat is then divided into three equal portions per share; one-third is for you and your family, one-third is for friends, and the final third is to be donated to those in need. We would like to say a big thank you to all donors for their donations to Medan Center, from that we bought a goat for sharing the happiness with the families of our children.
Read Medan Center Manual Here: