Apa sih BANANE? Pisang?

Bukan, BANANE bukan pisang! Walau pun maskot BANANE adalah senyuman ear-to-ear sang pisang, tapi makna BANANE sebenarnya lebih dari sang buah yang punya nilai gizi tinggi dan udah bisa jadi makanan awal bayi 6 bulan sekali pun! *nyomot pisang* Jadi apa itu BANANE?

Baiklah, sila siapkan teh dan pisang gorengnya , Ibu BANANE akan mulai bercerita asal-usul BANANE....

Berawal dari ingin mendidik anak berbagi, Ibu BANANE (the founder) berinisiatif untuk membuat dan menjual kaos anak yang seluruh hasilnya akan diserahkan kepada sebuah panti asuhan pada hari ulang tahun sang anak. Walau pun ide brilliant itu nggak sepenuhnya berjalan dengan sukses karena ternyata kaos yang dibuat waktu itu kurang baik kualitasnya maka penjualan kaos pun diurungkan. Tapi... hey, kenapa nggak diteruskan dan berkelanjutan??

Maka.... *teterereeeet* (bunyi terompet)... lahirlah ide BANANE sebuah projek usaha sosial  yang menjual kaos anak dimana 60% profit bersihnya akan dipakai untuk berbagi. Berbagi apa??? Berbagi seragam dan sepatu sekolah untuk anak yang nggak mampu. Kenapa seragam dan sepatu sekolah? Karena seragam dan sepatu sekolah itu tidak disubsidi lhoo sama pemerintah, padahal kan murid-murid harus pakai seragam dan sepatu ke sekolah. Dan sebelumnya, Ibu BANANE sepakat dan mufakat  dengan Tante dan Om BANANE yang mendukung gagasan ini untuk mengalokasikan bantuan ke pendidikan. Kenapa? Hmm... banyak tanya yaa. It's ok, Ibu BANANE paham kalau malu bertanya sesat di jalan. :p

Jadi kenapa memutuskan untuk mengalokasikan bantuan ke pendidikan bukan kesehatan, bukan bantuan untuk anak-anak kanker gitu mungkin...? Karena menurut kami semua, pendidikan adalah alokasi bantuan yang mempunyai sifat berkelanjutan. BANANE akan memberikan bantuan kepada anak-anak yang tidak mampu secara kontinu dan meluas, supaya mereka bisa tetap semangat melanjutkan sekolah dan mencapai mimpi-mimpi mereka. Suatu saat nanti mereka akan menjadi oang-orang yang berhasil dan memberikan pengaruh postif kepada orang-orang lain. Gitu lhooo yang Ibu maksud dengan bantuan berkelanjutan.

Nggak cukup disitu aja siiih, BANANE juga ingin membantu panti asuhan untuk memulai sebuah usaha yang mandiri. Supaya mereka nggak hidup hanya dari bantuan dan donasi, tapi bisa berdiri sendiri.

Trus gimana nih, kaosnya mana? Sabaaaar... BANANE ini nggak pengen jadi makhluk pelit. Kami mau mengajak banyak orang untuk ikut berbagi, nggak cuma anak-anak aja. Ibu BANANE paham kalau berbagi itu menyenangkan, ada hormon serotonin yang terproduksi di otak setiap kita berbagi ke sesama, hormon yang bikin perasaan jadi senang dan damai. Makanyaaaaa, BANANE melepas desain ke publik, supaya siapa pun bisa ikut berkontribusi untuk berbagi, berbagi melalui desain. Nantinya desain-desain yang diterima akan dipajang di websitenya BANANE yang masih dalam proses perampungan, jadi sabar yaaaa...

Eh tapi, trus kalau udah kirim desain dapat apa? Dapat hadiah nggak? Hmmm... nggak. Nama juga mau beramal kan. Tapi pengirim desain yang desainnya terpilih tentunya tetap dapat royalti dari setiap hasil penjualan kaos yang menggunakan desainnya, plus amalan sedekah desain yang dicatat malaikat! hehehe...

Teruuuuussss... gimana dong kalau pengen ikutan beraksi sama BANANE? Bisaaaaaaaa.... Ibu BANANE pengen projek ini jadi projek kita semua, makanya namanya BANANE yang sebenernya akronim dari Bantuan Anak Negeri. Ayo kita kembangin projek ini bareng-bareng, silahkan acungkan jempol, kasih masukan, kritikan, saran... apa pun di facebooknya BANANE. Ayo jadi Anak Negeri yang berkontribus!

Demikian lah kiranya koar-koar Ibu BANANE. Terima kasih yaaa udah mau baca :)

Salam anak negeri!

anak-anak panti asuhan Bakti Haji yang akan jadi target awal bantuan BANANE :)

www.facebook.com/BananeShare

Lets Start It All Over Again

Still you remember about my new project? I've shared about it a little here. Anyway, have you answered our questionnaire yet? Click here if you're parent and not yet answer. :)

But I'm not gonna talk about the questionnaire, of course. I assume that you already know my main purpose in doing this project, no? There are two: first is to train our little kids to share at their very early age, and second (which is actually the first purpose) is to help the unlucky children to keep going to school. A little reminder from my previous post, our help wouldn't be in form of cash. We will provide them anything to help them keep going to school, just not cash. Manipulating cash is so easy in this country and I just don't want to risk that.

In doing this start up, I have made some plannings and time line. Searching for children in need is one of the plans. There are several ways in searching for children who need help (financially): 1. by searching one by one and help each of them personally, 2. through the orphanage, and 3. through schools. Since I'm still a start up and lack of resources, I tend to do the easy way so number 1. is my last option.

I remember Indonesian's government have once made a project named GN-OTA (Gerakan Nasional Orang Tua Asuh). I'm not sure if the project is still on or not. But GN-OTA has their web named GN-OTA online where anyone can find out about how many Indonesian students who need help, their school, their name, their parents name and job. The web was last updated in 2010. Through the web I found out which school here in Balikpapan that mostly need help.

There are 2 schools in Balikpapan that are listed in GN-OTA online whom have students that are risked dropping out of school. Surprisingly, both of them are addressed near my house, Sepinggan. I came to one that have longer list. I have met the headmaster too whom then consult me to his staff who manages about poor students.

Our first meeting was nice. I didn't come officially, I didn't bring any letter or what so ever. I just came to talk to the school (the headmaster or any staff who can help) to tell them my project, and ask them if there any chance I can help their students. I told them how I choose to come to their school first. I ask them if there is any possibility that I can have their poor-students-data so I can screening it and choose which I can help. They have one hundred list, they said. There are quite many students who would gladly get some help.

I didn't get anything on our first meeting yet, they said they need to screen out their list as those list was made for last year. I was asked to come a few days later. My next meeting was with the headmasters staff accompanied with her friend. She didn't seem to catch my project's purpose on our first meeting, so she kinda interrogated me more. I get that they are a little worry for people who asks for  data about poor students to their school but end up for nothing but probably using it for irresponsible purpose. It seems like I'm not their first guest who came to ask for data about children in need.

The staff said that they had two guests form some kind of yayasan who came with the same meaning like mine before, but didn't have any further follow up for the children. The student's parents were upset since they were promised to receive some donation, then asked the school for responsibility. Those guests just disappeared and probably have used those data to ask for donation to a company or else. We can not just believe people easily in this country nowadays... if u know what I mean.

I fully understand their concern. I told them that I'm not willing to help those students with money, speaking from my own side I neither would trust them (the school side) easily.  Since I told them that I'm also willing to put the profile of the students that I'm going to help on our website one day, suddenly they have another things to concern. They were worried that if I put the students and the school name on the internet they will have more pressure from the student's parents perhaps, and not yet probably the dinas pendidikan will might stop their subsidy too thinking that the school might already get help, and other schools might get jealous and blah blah blah...

But long story short those staffs were very happy with my project, they would gladly help they said. But still they need to coordinate with the headmaster to cooperate with me. They told me then to come back for another week, giving them time to sort the new data.

So I came back a week after. As I came to their school the staff said that the headmaster has to go for a week of training, and has said that they wouldn't give any data unless there is an official letter from me. I have been meaning to give them an official letter, and would also ask  the headmaster to sign some kind of an MoU so anyone would clear what kind of help that I want to give. But since the previous deal is to meet up with the staff again so I didn't bring official letter yet. Again, I truly understand them but a little bit disappointed because the staff had my number, she could just text me to tell all of that so I didn't have to come to their school. Hence we had a deal that I should come back again the next week when the headmaster has return, and I also promised them that I would bring my official letter and the MoU letter along.

And on the next week, which is today, I text the staff to ask if I can meet the headmaster today and I also ask for the headmaster's name for the MoU letter. We actually had a deal, but I ask her again for just being polite. Sadly she didn't reply my text. So then I called her, then she said "I'm sorry, I have talked to the headmaster and he said that we will not give any data to you."

So that's it.

I'm not that disappointed... well maybe I do a little bit. Those deals have wasted my time actually. Now I have to rescheduled my time-line. And also a little sad because my aim is purely to help. But again, in this nation we all have a crisis of trust. Too much fraud already. :(

But I have prepared my self for such situations. I know that when we do something good obstacles will come from here and there. Just like when preparing for marriage, or when waiting for childbirth, or raising a kid, etc.

I still have three options: 1. go to the orphanages, 2. find children in need one by one, or 3. try for another school. Lets start it all over again....

My New Project

Have I ever told about my new project that I name it Tee 4 Charity here? No? It was actually a project for my son's birthday this year. I plan  to celebrate his birthday at the orphanage, so he can learn that he's luckier then some other kids. And while we're going to teach our son about sharing, why not make other luckier kids to join. How? By selling them tees!

The first plan is to sell tees for kids which all the benefit will be used as a charity for the orphanage. I already ordered some hand printed tees, which I designed my self. But unfortunately I didn't get good enough quality so I keep all those tees instead of selling them. A little too bad because there were quite much parents who interested to buy those tees, they want to teach their kids about sharing as well, but I surely wont sell bad product. Well, I don't feel sorry because my purpose since in the beginning was for charity. If I can not sell them, I can just give them away to the needs. Many kids would be happy to receive a brand new tees disregarding its bad printing quality, some kids might never taste a new tees at all... what do we know.

So, is the story end? No!

Since this is a good will so why not make it as a business instead. That's what I'm trying to do right now. A tee that is still gonna be for charity, but this time is to help some unlucky kids to provide things they need to keep going to school by it's 60-70% profit. At first I thought I can just find some unlucky kids and pay their school fee every months until they'd finish. But this time there is a government's program called BOS (biaya operasinal sekolah), so kids don't pay their school fee anymore. But, BOS only responsible for just the fee while kids also need books, uniform, stationary, etc. This is where we can help, and we will help continuously!

Have I sell any tee yet? NO, not yet. I'm still at the point in doing some research. And I need your help here, especially for parents, because I'm trying to sell tees for kids. Isn't it awesome, kids helping other kids?! :)

So, parents out there, please help me by answering this questionnaire. It only 4 paged questionnaire with 3-6 questions each page. It wont take your time more then 7 minutes, might even be less then 5 minutes. And please help me to spread it. The more response, the more I know how many people that care.

Again, here is the questionnaire.

Thank you so much!