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New School Opens a New Chapter for Parung Kids
On a basketball court overlooking the fields of Parung, just outside Bogor, a tournament is taking place, accompanied by joyful cheers. Nearby, children and teachers are shrieking with laughter as they team up for sack races and tug-of-war challenges.
The community of Parung has gathered on the eve of National Education Day earlier this month to celebrate the opening of their new school, SMPN Parung 2.
The school consists of six green-hued classrooms, a principal’s office as well as a staff room, a library, a laboratory and a mosque. There are shaded walkways, a large playing field, and access for disabled students. The school sits on 10,000 square meters, in an elevated position that catches the afternoon breeze.
“It’s a dream come true for us,” says Ismail Latif, who chaired the committee that built the school. “We have been waiting for this for seven years.”
Read more at Jakarta Globe
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The northern coast of Papua New Guinea is experiencing a boom in investment from international companies looking to process fish onshore.
Around 18% of the world’s total tuna stock is found in PNG’s 2.5 million square kilometre Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The fishing industry has grown from a dependency on access fees in the early 1980s to a more diversified sector, with significant downstream processing today.
Annually, about three-quarters of a million tonnes of tuna is caught in PNG waters. Most of these are landed in other countries for further processing. The Pacific Tuna Forum estimates the raw value of PNG’s annual catch at about US$1.5 billion per annum and says this figure could more than double if more value-added activities were implemented. Indeed, PNG has a long-term goal of processing in-country 100% of the tuna catch from within its EEZ.
Read more at Business Advantage PNG.
Indonesia’s peoples and government are often much-maligned for their attitude toward environmental sustainability, but a representative of the World Wildlife Fund is aiming to show that the nation is actually trailblazing the course toward a better environment.
Lida Pet-Soede, head of the WWF’s Coral Triangle Global Initiative, will kick off the Indonesian Heritage Society’s latest evening lecture series at Erasmus Huis on Tuesday with a discussion on the ways in which Indonesia is leading the region and the world in sustainability.
She says positive changes in Indonesia are visible, even to those of us who pay close attention to packaging in the seafood sections of some Jakarta supermarkets, which now label fish that have been caught sustainably.
It’s late morning on a bustling street in South Jakarta and children are pouring out of a small neighborhood preschool to ride the bright yellow ducks of the odong-odong street ride parked nearby.
Among the throng is 3-year-old Anaya, who has been attending this small religious school for one year. She and her friends have been studying the alphabet and learning new songs, basic skills children need to enter school. But Anaya’s transition to a state primary school is not assured. Like many Indonesian children, she does not have a birth certificate, and without one she is unable to enroll.
Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, estimates that about 60 percent of Indonesian children under age 5 do not have birth certificates, and half are not registered.
Read more at the Jakarta Globe
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister says Papua is becoming less an international issue than it once was, and that many countries that once raised the issue no longer do so.
Natalegawa says when the issue of Papua and West Papua is raised in an international context now, it is often on Indonesia’s own initiative.
In the Pacific, Vanuatu, once a strong supporter of West Papuan independence, has considerably weakened its position. Prime Minister Sato Kilman, who survived a no confidence vote this week, has strengthened ties with Jakarta, and the Melanesian Spearhead Group has admitted Indonesia as an official observer.
