Volunteers

Dear readers, it is better for you to read this first :

http://vergeonvisya.blogspot.com/2013/06/indonesia-canada-youth-exchange-program.html

It is the explanation about the program in general.

Did I mentioned volunteering? Yes.

For six months, most of the time we spent for volunteering, whether in our host community, or in our work placement. There are various work placement existed in the program, it is depend on your host community. In Canadian Phase (Halifax), we had :

Adsum House

The shelter for homeless women and children.
A pair of participant that worked/volunteered here is Ariane Michaud and Visya Septiana.

http://www.adsumforwomen.org/

We worked/volunteered three days a week. We do everything we can to help or give any assistances for our work placement. Ariane and I volunteered at Adsum House, sorting donations and working in the community clothing room, assisting with meal preparation in the kitchen, and helping with event and Christmas preparation.

Briony House

The shelter for abused women and children.
A pair of participant that worked/volunteered here is Yeniffer Pang-Chung and Fadhila Zamzam.

http://www.bryonyhouse.ca/

New Leaf Enterprise

Works with adults with physical disabilities on developing job skills in a collaborative social setting.
A pair of participant that worked/volunteered here is Terry Ray and Tangkas Saputra.

http://www.easterseals.ns.ca/portfolio/new-leaf-enterprises-gallery/

Ecology Action Centre

Further information, click http://www.ecologyaction.ca/.
A pair of participant that worked/volunteered here is Reid Thomson and Delima Suma Bestari

Nova Scotia Choral Federation

Here's the link http://www.nscf.ns.ca/ .
A pair of participant that worked/volunteered here is Daphne Ostiguy-Durand and Chalid Susanto

St. Joseph McKay School

There are two pair, or four volunteers here, they are Natasha Johnson, Nikolai Neun-Hornick, Ananta Wijaya, and Mustika Arini.

They worked in the elementary school, infos click https://www.facebook.com/pages/St-Josephs-A-McKay-SJAM-Home-and-School-Association/200484543329242

The Salvation Army

A pair of participant that worked/volunteered here is Kayla Pedscalny and Ivona Dorobia.

http://www.salvationarmy.ca/maritime/services/

Canada World Youth Public Relations

They worked to promote our program, creating a log book and processing newsletter, arrange fund raising events, announcing in CKDU radio Halifax, and also promote our program via talk show in CTV. A pair of participant that worked/volunteered here is Ken Nakanishi and Faisal Maulana.

http://cwy-jcm.com/logbook-indonesiahalifax/

Host Family (Keluarga angkat)

Where do we live in both Canadian Phase and Indonesian Phase in the youth exchange program?

In a house, for sure.

Host Family.

My counterpart and I shared the same house in Canadian and Indonesian Phase, In Canadian phase, we lived with Dr. Evelyn Sutton and Dr. Robert MacDonald. They have two children, our Host Brother James, and our Host sister, Ellen MacDonald. Both of our host parents are doctors. We spent three months together. There is a tradition in our host family, every Sunday, we have a Sunday Supper with relatives. I feel so lucky to be placed in their house, because I could met new people, and I interacted more. We also went to some tourism places, picking apples, picking pumpkin for Haloween, cut the Christmas tree, visiting beautiful places such as Lawrence Beach, Coves, Peggy's Cove, Swiss Air Monument, and so on. I also cooked Indonesian food once, just to introduce Indonesian food for my host family. I am gonna tell you a secret, my host mother baked the most delicious shortbread cookie on earth, I could eat the whole can without feeling guilty :D

In Indonesian Phase, we stayed at Ibu Entin and Bapak Gozali's House. Our host father has a furniture workshop, and working together to manage it with his wife. We have three host siblings, the older daughter named Nuri, the only son named Akmal, and the youngest one named Dewi. They were really nice to us. They also have a Saturday night tradition, which was to buy us food for dinner or dinner's dessert, Martabak (Indonesian pancakes), Sate (Satay), and another traditional food. Sometimes we went to tourism places such as the beach and the market, called Pamengpeuk. We also invited some of our friends, because our host family own an open-back-mini truck that can contain a lot of people, hahahaha. 

I'll explain more under the labels of host family, soon.

Counterpart

My COUNTER-part

In CWY-JCM youth exchange program between Indonesia and Canada, every participant will have their own counterpart. My counterpart is Yeniffer Pang-Chung, a girl from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Most of Indonesian who has the point of view that foreigner, or Canadian is the person with pale skin, blonde or brunette, and has colorful eyes, then they have to realize, my counterpart has more to offer than that stereotype. She was born in Panama, and moved to Canada, I truly believe she has the true Canadian personality, she is the type of Mature-Canadian-Woman.

I called her counter-part, because I believe my counterpart is the other part of me, which is cannot be explained, but she has different background, different personality, different point of view, and different way to solve a problem. Fortunately, my counterpart is just, great. I don’t know whether it is because she is older than me, or she has much more experiences than me. Whenever we had problem, I used to catch the wrong point, the incorrect way to solve it, but Yen always made me realize that the key of any relationship is to trust.

I never told her, but the first time I met her, I was afraid, a little bit intimidated when she asked me, “How old are you?”.

“I am nineteen, what about you?”, I replied.

“Twenty four, you guys still babies”, then she smiled.

The statement was not only for me, but also for the other girl that talked to her at the airport. Unfortunately, I felt something ‘ouch’, suddenly my biggest fear came true. I want to escape from the judgement that I am a KID, but this girl just said something really intimidating, and It is true. Now I realized I am not childish, it is because I am still a child, so it is fair because I really did not know anything to deal with those problems. I did not have a lot of experiences on how to work on a relationship, that is why most of the time I did actions that people consider as childish. It’s just, lack of experiences, if I did have, I will not act like I did before. Well, it is not an excuse, I just trying to explain what happened in the program. It already happened, and I have to move on and learn from the experiences, that I got from my counterpart and friends in the group.

For the rest of the program, Yen and I shared the same house, the same room (only in Indonesian Phase), shared the problem and fears, shared thoughts, we fought, we solved our problem, we had fun, we fought again, we cried, we said see you again, and now, we’re apart. It is just a distance, but I realized, someone will be so meaningful if you lost them. Well I do not lose her, we’re just in a far far away distance, and I did not see her as often as in the program. Six months together, I found my friend for life. 

 counterpart revealed!!

arrived at Halifax, soon we will meet our host family :)

getting ready for youth pledge day

a date with my counterpart, at Public Garden, Halifax.

watch out Vish! Lol

My Education Activity Day (EAD)

Talking about the youth exchange program that I already wrote before, I mentioned about EAD, or Educational Activity Day. Every counterpart pair have to present a new topic to the group. My counterpart and I presented about social determinants of health. This link below is the link to our group logbook in Canada World Youth site. So, If you guys interested to know more about EAD and also Social Determinants of Health, click this link. Enjoy :)

http://cwy-jcm.com/logbook-indonesiahalifax/ead-4-poverty-health/