Time flies so fast! KIDS program will have served for 18 years by the end of this year. The children under this program are all grown up now, and it’s nice to be able to bring a smile on their faces.
Last month, YKIP conducted an annual school supplies distribution for the children. There are 17 active students this year, with one student finished university. Two students are in senior high school, and the rest are studying at university. Since one lives in Java, we only met 16 of them during the school supplies distribution.
As usual, not only school supplies, YKIP also distributed birthday presents to all students. Besides, there were prizes for students with excellent grades in the last academic year. Thirteen students with a GPA above 3.3 (on a 4-point scale) were entitled to the award. There were also prizes for non-academic competitions. This year’s prizes were given to two brothers: Aldi for winning a singing competition, and Alief as the best cinematographer in the Government Institutes Olympiade.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all students in the KIDS program are now participating in the online home-learning program, either fully or partially. While the problems can be resolved for most of them, the more challenging issue is those who are in the last year of their study. YKIP is committed to helping these final-year students who need to extend their study period due to the pandemic.
Wina, who is in her last semester majoring in Tourism Management, is affected by the pandemic quite harder than other children in the program. In March, her job-training program in a five-star hotel was postponed due to the hotel closure. As a result, she could not continue gathering the data for her thesis.
“I planned to graduate in August this year, but due to this circumstance, I can’t prepare my thesis. My proposal was already approved. I hope the pandemic will end soon so that I can prepare the thesis and graduate from the university. It is hard, but I am grateful for the continuous support from YKIP,” Wina explained.
Idat is another student whose thesis had to be postponed. Before the pandemic, he already started his thesis guidance. In March, his campus was closed, and the process is continued online. However, the online process is not as smooth as expected.
“The process is getting slower, and I could not finish as planned. I am a bit disappointed, but I have to keep going. I set my target to graduate at the end of this semester. Thank you YKIP for always supporting me,” Idat told YKIP during the school supplies distribution.
There is no doubt that we have a hard time indeed, but we believe that we will go through this together. Keep up the good spirit!