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A message from our Chairman
“Welcome to Kopepeantara! We are a non-profit organization that offers educational support to remote island communities in Indonesia. Based in Kaledupa, one of a small group of islands in South-East Sulawesi, we help communities to set up small, village-level projects to provide books, learning resources and informal education programs.
Our name derives from the Kaledupan phrase 'show us the way' and is an acronym for our founding committee Komite Pengembangan Pendidikan Anak Nusantara- Archipelago Children’s Educational Development Committee.
Our mission is to ensure that every child has access to basic learning resources, in particular books and writing materials. Books really are the windows to the world, especially in villages with no newspapers, phones or internet!
This first edition of our website was built entirely in the field, with no internet connection and an intermittent electricity supply, so please accept our apologies if some pages are not yet accessible. The site will be completed later this year, when the design team return to the UK.
We’d love to hear your comments about our activities and website, so please drop us an email at kopepeantara@hotmail.com or visit our contacts page. Also, take a glance at our thank you page, and see how ordinary people can make a difference to whole communities halfway across the globe.”
Saniati
Chairman,
Kopepeantara
To ensure that every Indonesian child has access to basic learning resources, namely reading books, writing materials and learning guidance, regardless of their financial, social or geographical situation.
The story of Kopepeantara began in 2001, when two British students, Sarah Karaviotis and Karen Cupit from Weymouth, Dorset, visited the island of Kaledupa whilst conducting research for degrees at Bournemouth University. “I was part of a research team headed by Professor James Crabbe of Reading University” says Sarah. “We were looking at the growth rates of reef-building corals. My study focused on the impacts of live coral mining on three local reefs.” Karen was training to be a nurse at the time, and was interested in what healthcare provisions existed in such remote areas.
Quite apart from their studies, the two students quickly became involved with the local community through a chance friendship with a local family. “What hit us most abruptly was the almost complete absence of any printed materials whatsoever, books or newspapers...the only written documents we did see were wedding invitations and the occasional tattered school text book, usually wildly out of date.”
As their Indonesian language skills improved, Karen and Sarah began to describe their experiences of the education system in the UK, and how different their childhoods might have been had they not read books from an early age.
Local people were keen to express their own concerns about the impact of remote island life on the education of their children. “Everyone was asking us to help them find books” says Karen “from children to parents and local school head teachers.”
The two resolved to return to Kaledupa, to address the concerns of the local community. In 2002, through a series of informal meetings and discussions with friends, it was agreed that the most efficient way of providing reading materials would be to collect them into one place, from which they could be shared around the whole community.
By 2003, the small group of friends had evolved into a fully formed committee, headed by the local District Chief, with members from all levels of the Kaledupan community. In May of that year, the first public lending library of its kind was established in South East Sulawesi, and Kopepeantara was born...!