Tanoto Foundation recently dedicated a philanthropic donation of SGD 3 million towards the establishment of the Tanoto Foundation Centre for Child and Maternal Health Programmes (TF Centre for CHaMP) in Singapore.

The centre, which will be part of the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), allows the hospital the opportunity to be a leader in early childhood and maternal health.

This latest gift is part of Tanoto Foundation’s ongoing commitment to support medical research and science on diseases which are prevalent in Asia.

At the 160th KKH Anniversary Dinner, Imelda Tanoto, Member of the Tanoto Foundation Board of Trustees and Bey Soo Khiang, Executive Advisor at Tanoto Foundation presented the cheque for the donation on-stage in the presence of KKH and SingHealth leaders, as well as Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

The TF Centre for CHaMP gives KKH the impetus to pull together various new projects and initiatives which will determine future health benefits for early child health and maternal health.

Research in early childhood and maternal health will be the focus of the TF Centre for CHaMP, to understand how KKH can better manage the best practices for baby and mother. The TF Centre will also understand and meet the gaps in knowledge dissemination and public education, with regards to child development and maternal health.

The development of thought leadership will also be expected of the TF Centre for CHaMP, through research and educational projects generated through various project start-up grants aimed at translating how KKH can pilot and collect data around new service delivery models of care.

The presence of the Centre additionally forms multi-stakeholder partnerships, and convenes key actors in the early childhood development and maternal health space.

Tanoto Foundation, founded by Sukanto Tanoto and Tinah Bingei Tanoto, continues to contribute to early childhood education and development.

To former Tanoto Foundation Scholarship recipient Saskya Sastavyana, a strong will and eagerness to learn is vital in climbing up the career leader and achieving world-class job capabilities.

“Employers are looking for candidates who have three traits: willingness, ability, and desire. If jobseekers can demonstrate these three things, their chances of being accepted into their dream jobs are really high.”

Saskya shared that she did not come from an affluent family, admitting that she faced many financial obstacles when she was growing up in Bandung, especially her education costs.

In 2006, when she graduated high school, Saskya’s parents advised her to continue her studies at the Bandung Institute of Technology, citing that they would be able to at least save on her daily costs than if she went out of town for university.

Saskya applied for the Regional and City Planning Program at the university, and got accepted. However, her financial troubles continued, and she worried towards the end of each semester, having to apply for and be granted financial aid by the university.

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Thankfully, in 2008, Saskya successfully managed to get a scholarship from Tanoto Foundation. The scholarship paid for her university tuition costs until she graduated in 2010.

With the burden of having to pay for university relieved, Sasyka took the opportunity to make full use of her time at university. Not only did she excel academically, she also involved herself in various activities, both on and off campus.

Saskya realized early on that to be work-ready, she had to acquire new abilities and learn new things – even if she did not like them very much. At that time, she forced herself to learn photography and political science, read many books and learned how to write for the media.

“While studying, I began to think ahead. I knew I had to create a good work portfolio so that I would be ready to enter the workforce as soon as I graduated. I wanted to be able to immediately help my parents financially.”

Upon graduating, Sasyka decided to apply for a job at Unilever, a company she believed that would allow her to grow and earn a good income.

Armed with a portfolio that has been built since university, Saskya got the job and went on to become the first female manager in Unilever Indonesia to be responsible for overseeing one sales area.

In this position, Saskya has managed to successfully lead her team into becoming one of the top three sales areas, out of 34 areas, for three consecutive years.

Saskya has also represented her company on study abroad opportunities, including to India where she learned about big data analytics.

Tanoto Foundation’s new PINTAR Program is a revamped version of its Pelita Pendidikan program, and focuses on improving the quality of basic education in schools across Indonesia.

Pelita Pendidikan, which ran from 2010 to 2017, reached more than 43,000 students and 518 schools, supporting the delivery of teaching and quality of learning by improving teachers’ qualifications and skills, and upgrading school facilities and infrastructure.

PINTAR will build on the success of Pelita Pendidikan, broadening the focus from rural schools in North Sumatra, Jambi and Riau provinces to cover schools in urban areas, as well as Central Java and East Kalimantan provinces.

PINTAR will also expand Pelita Pendidikan’s work with primary schools, to also include junior secondary schools, universities and Islamic schools in these provinces.

Tanoto Foundation intends to help Indonesia become one of the five most improved countries in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) ranking system by 2030. Currently, Indonesia is ranked 62nd out of 70 nations surveyed.

“PINTAR is an improved version of Pelita Pendidikan. We changed the program to PINTAR because we want to achieve a much greater impact,” said Margaretha Ari Widowati, Deputy Director of PINTAR.

The previous program was executed largely by Tanoto Foundation itself. While that brought positive results, it meant that there was a limit to how far it could be scaled, particularly in a country with more than 250,000 schools.

“We used to work in a ‘private sector’ manner in the past – we had an idea, we had the money, we put it to use. Now, we will position ourselves as a partner of the government. So we work with the governments, we engage them and establish agreements with them,” Margaretha explained.

“With PINTAR, we build up the best (education) practices which are happening now in the field. Then we promote them to the governments and help them to develop their capacities in replicating the practices and adopting them into their own programs and within their budgets,” she added.

Under PINTAR, Tanoto Foundation aims to work with 416 schools in 14 districts this year alone.

“Next year, we are targeting to work with 810 schools in 30 districts. And five years from now, we are expecting 12,000 schools to be adopting our program (via government dissemination),” Margaretha said.

In order to better execute this new focus, the PINTAR team has been significantly expanded from 39 to close to 90 professionals.

“We now have specialized employees who work in communications, for example, a team which focuses on developing, updating and refining teacher training models, and a separate team which focuses on the teacher training itself,” Margaretha shared.

She added that PINTAR also had a team which focuses on maintaining relations with the governments.

“We have also changed the way in which we work with them by asking them to give us a space in their offices so that PINTAR team members can actually sit there and work directly with the governments,” she further said.

To date, Tanoto Foundation has signed MoUs with 13 regency heads, as well as agreements with three ministries – the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education, and the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

These established agreements are expected to facilitate closer cooperation between Tanoto Foundation and the Indonesian government in achieving improved education quality for all by 2030.