Indonesian School Talk

We were contacted by Wiwin Papilaya, a school teacher in Borneo, Indonesia who we met during our trip in 2008, to talk with her students about our quest to save the orangutan as well as Australia in general.  It was a really interesting discussion as we had to use a translator to speak Indonesian between us and the students.  A number of students were able to speak English and ask their questions directly but our answers had to be translated to Indonesian for them to understand as English is their second language.

One of the teachers in the school, Putra Lumi introduced the boys, “We are so grateful to have this session with you.  Today we have students ranging from Primary to Senior high school.  We are beyond proud to have you here.  Your project has already touched the world.”

Overall there were 61 people on the video call with 57 of them being students.  The format of the call was a question and answer session and it was very well organised.

The students were curious about why we were interested to save the orangutan and what got us started on our quest.  They also wanted to know whether we were interested in saving other animals so we explained to them how by saving the orangutan habitat we are saving many other animals that rely on that same habitat for survival.

It was a great opportunity to get the Indonesian students to become more aware and invested in their own independent research on their local wildlife so they too can help first hand in the care of Orangutans and volunteer in the care centres.

It was encouraging to see their desire to become involved knowing it is a problem so close to their home as that topic came up quite often throughout the session.  There was a genuine desire to know how they too can make a difference.

In closing the session, Putra said, “What we can take away from this session with Daniel and William is the students need to take action and be the agent for transformation in this world”.

Thank you to everyone involved in making this happen, we loved talking with you and helping to spread awareness about the plight of the orangutan.