Bozeman International Children's
Festival
In the upcoming “Fall International Children’s Festival” at Bogert Park on
Saturday morning, 10:00 am, September 22, we have been given a special booth
for Indonesian section from the University Office of International Program
(OIP). This is a good opportunity for me to have a direct contact with the
society while we stay here in Bozeman.
Since
Bozeman is a city of college students, there are many people from around the
world came here to join the classes at Montana State University (MSU), and as
the institution of OIP is doing very well, many foreign college student from
across the country that live here as well for the same purpose.
“This
Fall International Children’s Festival is created for the children of Bozeman
to actively engage with MSU’s international students as well as the local
organization”, said Debra De Bode, the Director of International Students and
Scholar Services. There will be many booths from these international students
participating in this festival. They will present their culture to the children
and have fun to play with. I, as Indonesian, will set up games for those
children so they know that Indonesian traditional games are quiet easy to play
and the supplies can be reached from the store around here. These games are
very popular and always be a hit as our Independence Day games. I try to
introduce these games hoping that our (Indonesian) games will become an
international game around the neighborhoods and also be popular among children
around the world.
I
am going to bring in these Indonesian traditional games called Marble Speed
Race, Chips Eating Race, and Bottle Pen Race. Each game have difference
influence to the kids, both mentally and physically. Marble Speed Race can
teach the children to be focus, because they have to keep the marble stay
steady on the spoon that held by their mouth while they walk or even run to the
finish line to win. Chips Eating Race will make them appreciate the nature
system of causity and consequences of surrounding, and how they impact you, in
this case, if someone already bite by pulling the chips, the string that is
connected all together will shaking and you have to wait or try to stop your
chip from shaking, not by hand, so that you can continue to eat it bite after
bite until you eat them all. Bottle Pen Race is played by tie the pen in the
end of a string at your back like a tail, and it will need so much patience and
control of yourself to get the pen into the bottle, because the more you get
impatience the more difficult to get the pen in for whenever you feel anxious
it can make the string swaying even wildly.
These simple games will unconsciously
educate the children on how to conduct themselves in many various situations if
we can direct them in a good and positive way. I believe our Indonesian games
and many other games or activities presented by the other countries will make
the children feel more confident, powerful, fearless, and cheerful, moreover
have a good skill to interact with people or society, especially from other
nation. I hope that they can carry on this relationship in a higher phase all
the way they reach the grown up age.
ROC Wheels - Provide mobility products
for people with disabilities in developing countries
This month I
volunteer at Reach Out and Care Wheels (ROCWheels Inc.) in everytwo hours
Friday morning for 5 weeks. ROCWheels established to provide mobility products
for people with disabilities in developing countries and encouraged to promote
partnerships through service, youth empowerment, wheelchair distribution,
manufacturing and educational developmentopportunities. This is a non-profit
charitable organization.
I found the organization by browsing
the internet for volunteer activities in Bozeman. Gallatin Valley Food Bank and
ROC Wheels is my target for volunteer, because for their humanitarian social
cause. After trying to contact both of the organization, finale ROC Wheels is
the easy in forward to contact and accepted me to volunteer there. Andrew
Babcock the Executive Director of ROC Wheel asks me to come to the office for
an interview.
It is Friday morning and I drove to Gallatin Park Drive, north of Bozeman. The
ROC Wheels office and workshop is on that street. It took me a half hour drive
in traffic to there. Using my map-software on my phone, it w not difficult to
find it. I went inside the office and then I met an elderly woman, which is
Andrew's secretary. She greets me and asked to come in to Andrews office, where
he is already waiting me. He is a white blonde man, with a medium size of
weight and height. He gave his hand and we shake hand. I introduced myself
again and appointing my interest to volunteer in his organization. Andrew
explains about his organization, their purpose and target. He even mentions
that he is trying to expand his organization works to Indonesia. From his
information, he was contacting to an Indonesian manufacturing company, which is
not far from my home in Jakarta.
We discussed on how I could be contribute on the organization. After knows that
I am a mechanical engineer he said that he got very volunteer activity for me.
Day 1 @ ROC
At
9:30 I arrived at ROC, it is around 30 minutes’ drive from my house. The
traffic is low and it did not take such effort to go there. After entering the
office, Andrew comes out from his room. He asks me to join him to the workshop.
In the workshop, he pointed to a workstation where I will be working, and gives
a brief how to manufacture a wheelchair. With a manual book and a finished
wheelchair as an example, he asked to me to start manufacture a wheelchair that
is still in the box. It is quite awkward in the beginning, but after thinking
that the needs one will use this chair, I did not hesitate no more.
Start
from installing the frame and the wheels. With some bolts that need to tighten
by a wrench. If there is some difficulties, I look again the manual book or to
the example wheelchair. Slowly but sure, with some reworks, the wheelchair is
finished. Andrew was amazed that it finishes so quickly. After he checks it and
declares that it is ok, he asks to dismantle again and package the parts again
to the box.
Dismantling
the wheelchair is a fun part, after the experience installing it. I have
accustomed with the tools and the wheel itself. The challenging part was to put
every part in order in the box. At the end, Andrew guides for this task.
Day 2, Next Week @
ROC
The same time as last week, I arrived at the ROC. Now is the time to
prepare for wheelchair parts that will use by volunteers to build. Andrew gave
me a paper list of more than 100 parts with a total of more than 1000 items. He
showed me stacks of large container in the corner. He said that the container has
given a number for the parts to insert into it. He shows where the parts that
will be sorted. Base on the paper, I started sifting through the parts and
insert into the container by number. It took me more than two hours to finish this job. It is very overwhelming to do this job, when remember that this wheelchair will be use for the disable kids.
Day 3, Third Week @ ROC
Now it is
already a habit to have a Friday morning works in ROC. In this week, we should
finish the inventory for the new wheelchair project. Now we are cataloging the
small items. We used a scale to help us in counting the items. Almost 3000
items we sort to the containers. Many of the parts were various bolts, nuts and
even spring. These wheelchairs are ready in two sizes. 13 inches sizes and 15
inches sizes. It was mean to accommodate every size of children. The ROC
wheelchairs targeted the little ones in hope that their bones were not ruin so
much. I really enjoyed to volunteer in ROC to help the needs one.
