To mark Tanoto Foundation’s 40^th year anniversary we are asking all Tanoto Foundation employees to take part in a competition to share their proudest moment during their time in Tanoto Foundation. To enter, you can upload a photo of yourself  or upload a 1 minute video of your proudest moment while working in Tanoto Foundation to Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #MyTF40ProudestMoment. Write your proudest moment story while working at Tanoto Foundation in your social media caption.

There will be 3 winners from the competition, with a prize of a Rp 500,000 voucher each.

The competition continues to run until 8 October 2021.

Let’s show your pride, working with Tanoto Foundation!

Terms and conditions:

• – Your social media accounts must be public
• – Use the #MyTF40ProudestMoment hashtag in your caption
• – Post a photo with caption or 1-minute video on your Facebook OR Instagram feed (for Indonesia and Singapore employees). Don’t forget to write your proudest moment in the caption
• – The competition is intended for Tanoto Foundation employees only
• – Tanoto Foundation Corporate Communications team and employees of RGEI are not eligible to enter the competition
• – Follow the health protocols while you are recording (unless you’re alone or using pictures or videos that were taken before the pandemic)
• – There will be 2 categories. Most engagement (likes and comments) in a photo post and most engagement in a video post
• – There will be 2 winners for the photo category and one winner for the video category
• – There will be a total of 3 winners in the competition
• – Each winner will win a digital voucher worth Rp 500,000
• – Voucher prizes are only eligible for Tanoto Foundation Employees in Indonesia
• – Winners from outside of Indonesia will win a set of special merchandise from Tanoto Foundation
• – By entering the competition, each contestant automatically grants permission for their materials to be used in Tanoto Foundation’s materials
• – The judges’ decision is final
• – The video must be uploaded the latest on October 10, 11.59 PM Jakarta time
• – The winners will be announced on October 15, 2021.
• – For Tanoto Foundation employees in China, you may enter the competition by sending us an email of the recording of your video on Weibo or WeChat and a screen shot of your photo post or your video posts with the number of Likes, comments or engagement to german_wijaya@www.tanotofoundation.org

Families play a vital part in the development of young children, and perhaps no one role is more important than that of the mother.

To commemorate Mother’s Day which falls on December 22 in Indonesia, Tanoto Foundation, an independent family philanthropy organisation founded by Sukanto Tanoto and Tinah Bingei Tanoto in 1981, is raising awareness of the work of these often overlooked heroes, and sharing inspiration and knowledge about best practices in parenting.

Why parents matter

The so-called ‘Golden Age’ from 0-5 years plays a key role in physical and brain development. Research at the University of Chicago shows that around half of intellectual development takes place between the age of four, and 80 per cent by the age of eight.

That means that 50 per cent of a child’s intellectual capacity has already been determined before they enter the formal education system. And it’s parents who have the ability to determine the success or otherwise of this crucial early period.

Optimizing children’s growth and development

While there are many factors that can affect a child’s development, they broadly fall into three categories: diet, living environment and lifestyle, and parenting.

A healthy diet is crucial to physical and intellectual development, but a lack of understanding on what constitutes a balanced meal is one of the factors behind Indonesia’s persistently high rate of child stunting. Most children get enough calories, but often meals are rice-heavy and lacking in adequate nutrients.

Children under six months should also be exclusively breastfed, but according to the WHO only one in two children in Indonesia are, and only a little more than 5 percent of children are still breastfed at 23 months of age.

In 2017, the government launched the National Strategy to Accelerate Stunting Prevention (StraNas Stunting), adopting a “whole-of-government” approach involving 22 ministries that cover health, early childhood education and development, water, sanitation and hygiene, food security and social protection incentives.

In partnership with the World Bank, Tanoto Foundation supports StraNas on behavioral change communication. To prevent stunting, mothers should be encouraged to breastfeed exclusively until their babies are 6 months old.

Lifestyle involves teaching children basic hygiene, such as washing hands with soap and clean running water, and not defecating openly. UNICEF noted that nearly 25 million people in Indonesia do not use toilets, which both impacts dignity and presents a health hazard.

Parenting encompasses all these things, as well as an understanding of how to care for and nurture a child’s intellectual development, for example by helping prepare them for when it’s time to enter the formal education system.

As early as possible, psychosocial stimulation in children is important to stimulate brain development. Tanoto Foundation, through early childhood centers, provides training on parenting and creative learning that emphasizes activities that can be done at home to support children’s cognitive and motor intelligence.

The importance of the mother

All of this starts from the family, and both parents have vital roles to play. In Indonesia it’s still common for mothers to take the lead in feeding the family, so their knowledge of nutrition is vital.

Likewise with health, where mothers are often the ones taking young children for their regular health checkups.

This Mother’s Day we’re saluting all the mothers in Indonesia, who work so hard to raise the country’s next generation. We’ll be raising awareness throughout the month of December on best practices in parenting, diet, and a clean and healthy lifestyle that can be started from the family, so follow our social media channels for more.

Before the morning bell rings, students at SDN V SDN 30 Wirotho Agung, Jambi, gather in the school yard, holding reading books. Some sit in groups, some line up neatly on park benches.

Aldi, one of the students, stands in front of his group and reads a story. His friends listen attentively. Aldi recounts from the book he just read. His friends look on seriously, listening and absorbing the information he conveys.

In another place, Sumaryati, a housewife in rural Wonogiri, Central Java, is following creative lessons delivered by teachers at her child’s school. As a parent, Sumaryati felt the need to study again so that she could guide her child to study at home during the pandemic. Parents learn from teachers, and children learn at home with parental guidance.

These activities illustrate that quality learning does not have to be in the classroom and in formal schools. Everyone can act as both teacher and student, regardless of age, profession, or social strata.

This is in line with one of the points in the 2013 Curriculum (K-13) in the Indonesian education system: that anyone is a teacher, anyone is a student, and anywhere is a class.

In line with the government policy promoting Freedom of Learning (Merdeka Belajar), where students are given the opportunity to learn freely by paying attention to their talents, without stress and pressure, the concept of “everyone is a teacher” is very relevant.

Students can learn from a variety of sources: not only from teachers, but from people in their environment, from their friends, from books, and from the internet. Learning does not have to be in the classroom: it can also be in the fields, in the garden, in the courtyard, and so on.

Who is a teacher?

According to Law No. 14 of 2005, teachers are professional educators with the main task of educating, teaching, guiding, directing, training, assessing, and evaluating students throughout their formal education.

In practice, the responsibility to educate does not rest solely on the shoulders of a teacher. Each person has a role to play to provide Indonesian children with quality learning so that they can improve their lives in the future, as well as compete at the global level.

Teachers are not only responsible for teaching specialist subjects, but also to help develop the morals, ethics, integrity, and character of students. And these are all areas where anyone – not just teachers – can help.

Tanoto Foundation support

Through the PINTAR program, Tanoto Foundation, an independent family philanthropy organisation founded by Sukanto Tanoto and Tinah Bingei Tanoto in 1981, trains teachers, school principals, and lecturers of the LPTK (Educational Personnel Education Institute) to develop good practice in learning, including active learning and learning with the MIKiR (experiencing, interaction, communication, and reflection) concept.

This program not only fosters creativity among teachers, but also spreads best practices to schools, teachers, parents and the community around the school so that they can jointly apply this model in an effort to improve quality of education.

November marks National Teacher’s Day, so Tanoto Foundation is carrying out the ‘everyone is a teacher’ campaign with the aim of appreciating the work of teachers and the broader community in educating Indonesian children. Keep up with our posts on all Tanoto Foundation social media channels.