Annual Report 2020: Taking Chances, Embracing the Change

Some may consider that 2020 was the worst year in living memory. Well, it’s not entirely wrong.

In Indonesia, we welcomed 2020 with the worst rainfall in over a decade, which caused severe flooding in Greater Jakarta.

In March, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the archipelago, affecting every aspect of our lives. Within a short period of time, after President Joko Widodo announced the first COVID-19 cases in Indonesia, we had to face new realities that children should start learning from home, emergency rooms were full and medical workers were battling the spike in coronavirus cases.

It’s times like these that make philanthropy even more important. Tanoto Foundation, an independent family philanthropy organisation founded by Sukanto Tanoto and Tinah Bingei Tanoto in 1981, based on the belief that every person should have the opportunity to realize his or her full potential.

Tanoto Foundation took action to help mitigate the health crisis while also making changes to our programs to ensure they could function effectively under changing circumstances.

Last year, we distributed assistance totalling IDR157 Billion (US$11.1M) to support a diverse range of education and human capital development social programs, an increase from IDR155 billion (US$10.9M) in 2019.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we answered the urgent call for humanitarian support across our countries of operation for PPE and testing equipment, together with RGE Group and our partners.

We continued to develop 22 Rumah Anak SIGAP parenting and early learning centers for children up the age of three in Jakarta, Kutai, Kartanegara, and Pandeglang. Meanwhile, in China, our rural community-based HOPE program continued to garner support and we remain on track to scale to 100 early childhood centers.

Our Basic Education teams ramped up efforts in raising the capacities of school administrators and educators by empowering local facilitators. We hosted remote conferences and utilized social media to assist teachers and school principals in adapting to remote learning. Our efforts reached 3,096 teachers, administrators, and parents, benefitting 185,037 students.

For the first time, we held our TELADAN scholarship recruitment entirely online. The team had to work hard to ensure the selection process went smoothly and that candidates were given a fair chance, and in the end it paid off, as we were able to select 172 new TELADAN Scholars from a total of 10,895 applicants.

Looking back, we realise there are so many things that we can learn from the past year. All our efforts to adapt with the new realities and collaborations with various parties had helped us to get through one of the toughest years in history.

Therefore, allow us to share the Tanoto Foundation’s Annual Report 2020. For us, this report is not meant to showcase our achievements, but it serves as a source of inspiration and a reminder to keep the spirit up to get through the challenges we face.

You can access the full report via this link.