Meyrlin Hendrita Anggai, Woman Pioneer for Free Education
By
Fabio Maria Lopes Costa
·5 minutes read
Meyrlin Hendrita Anggai aspires to provide adequate education for Papuan children to make them more prepared for employment. She realized this by founding the Kitong Bisa Learning Center (KBLC), which provides free English language courses and entrepreneurship training for children in Jayapura. The programs have been running for the past two years.
Kompas observed Meyrlin’s activities at the KBLC twice, namely on Feb. 16 last year and on Saturday afternoon. At the time, she and two other teachers, Ronald Kapisa and Roberto Monim, were busy preparing English language course material for the children at one of KBLC’s units in Dok VIII, North Jayapura district.
The center is the home of a married couple, Yosias Aronggear and Vanelda Imbiri. A total of 79 children were registered as KBLC students in Dok VIII. In addition to Dok VIII, there is another KBLC unit located in Meyrlin’s house in Entrop subdistrict, South Jayapura district. At KBLC Entrop, there are 20 registered students.
Classes at the KBLC start at 3 p.m. on Fridays and 2 p.m. on Saturdays, local time. The duration is around 90 to 120 minutes. There are four classes at the KBLC, namely "Baby Shark" for children aged 4 to 5, "White House" for grades 1 to 3, "Evangelion" for grades 3 to 6 and "Cenderawasih" for junior and high school students.
Around 2 p.m., English learning activities began. With a smile, Meyrlin taught children aged 5 to 6 how to sing English songs such as "Baby Shark". They sang confidently and imitated the movements of their teacher.
This activity lasted for two hours. After that, Meyrlin was either taken home by a friend on motorcycle or picked up by her husband, Anthony Patiran. When she arrives home, she starts another learning activity, which lasts until sunset.
Besides Meyrlin, there are 12 volunteers helping out at the KBLC. They come from various backgrounds and include lawyers, teachers, students, housewives, and new graduates. Together with Meyrlin, they provide the children with free English and entrepreneurship material.
English-related material taught at KBLC Jayapura includes how to read the alphabet in English, sing, learn English grammar in accordance with the rules, and how to pronounce it. “Children aged 4 to 6 years, have not received full English material. We must first teach them to read,” Meyrlin said.
Economic value
As for entrepreneurship material, children who are still in kindergarten and elementary school are taught games related to entrepreneurship such as monopoly Middle to high school students are trained to explore ideas about developing products that have economic value and how to produce them. Be they bags from recycled plastic material, spoons from sago trees, to various other useful objects.
Before becoming a KBLC teacher, Meyrlin was an engineer at the BP Tangguh gas company in Bintuni Bay regency, West Papua, in 2006.
While working at the company, she found that Papuan workers were stereotyped as being unprofessional and irresponsible.
“They were told they were not diligent enough and often got negative ratings from other co-workers, especially foreign workers. I was very sad about these assessments,” said the mother of two.
She promised herself that one day she would change this stigma by training Papuan children to master foreign languages and foster entrepreneurship.
Meyrlin resigned from the company in 2015 to focus on taking care of her husband and two children, Jeriel Patiran and Vergie Patiran.
In 2017, she talked with her friend, Bily Mambrasar, who was also an employee at BP Tangguh. It happened that Bily was the initial pioneer of the KBLC movement in Serui, which is the capital of Yapen Islands regency, in 2009.Bily also motivated Meyrlin to open a KBLC branch in Jayapura, which she did in 2017. She put an ad in one of the local newspapers for volunteer teachers to join her.
She also started the KBLC in her home with two volunteers and 10 students. The KBLC in Jayapura still survives to this day with 12 teaching staff.
Although it provides free English language courses and entrepreneurship training for children, she still needs a lot of support from various parties. Currently, the support from the parents to motivate their children to attend KBLC is still lacking. This was shown by the presence of only 30 to 40 children who participated in the KBLC on Friday and Saturday.
“We never get tired of socializing the parents, both face-to-face and through a WhatsApp group,” Meyrlin said.
The KBLC movement has not received support from the local administration, especially in providing a bigger place for teaching.
The KBLC’s location in Dok VIII only has two rooms measuring around 6 square meters by 5 sq m and one terrace measuring around 2 sq m by 3 sq m. Meanwhile, the KBLC location in Meyrlin’s yard in Entrop village is only about 5 sq m by 4 sq m.
“I dream that one day the KBLC would have a teaching class in the form of a two-story building, with the first floor specifically catering to entrepreneurship training and the second floor for English language courses,” she said.
Amid various obstacles, Meyrlin still hopes to be able to develop the KBLC in other areas such as Sentani. The aim is to provide support for Papuan children to achieve a bright future.
A quote from former South African president Nelson Mandela, who had fought against apartheid, was her motivation. “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world.”
Meyrlin Hendrita Anggai
Born: Jayapura, May 28, 1983
Husband: Anthony Patiran
Child:
- Jeriel Patiran
- Vergie Patiran
Education:
- SD Negeri 3 Abepura (1992-1997)
- SMP Negeri 2 Abepura (1997-1999)
- SMA Negeri 1 Kota Jayapura (1999-2001)
- Industry Engineering at Merdeka Malang University (2001-2006)