Suddenly Becoming a Teacher

There are many habit changes experienced by children and parents in the assisted areas of Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI). The mothers in Empering Sub-village, Sekadau Regency, West Kalimantan were one of them. One of them is the educational aspect that makes children learn from home. Sulastri (43) also experienced these changes and became an impromptu teacher for her children.

Sulastri is a mother of four school-aged children. Before the pandemic occurred, Sulastri was just an ordinary housewife like other mothers in general. Her daily activities are cooking, sweeping, washing, and occasionally helping her husband with the oil palm plantation inherited from his parents.

“At first, I was stressed by the government regulation that children learn from home. I do not have the experience to teach my children at home because so far they study more formally in their respective schools, whereas now they all ask me,” said Sulastri.

Sulastri is only one of the mothers who feel this difficulty. Seeing this, the WVI Area Program Sekadau helped them with their difficulties. Through the distribution of learning materials to PAUD, WVI helps tutors and parents to support their children learning from home.

This initiative is very helpful for parents. One of them is for Sulastri. He felt very helped by the learning material. He said he could even spend time studying and playing with his children.

"Alhamdulilah, now I have a new job. I suddenly became a teacher for my four children. Surprisingly it can be fun to be a ‘teacher’ at home. I finally got closer to my children,” Sulastri added.

The learning material in the form of a snakes and ladders board game also helps parents like Sulastri to explain Covid-19 to their children. Various ways related to Covid-19 prevention and information that were exposed in the material made Sulastri enjoy the time to become an impromptu teacher for her children.

Written by: Lorensius Gunawan, Sponsorship Officer for Sekadau Program Area Wahana Visi Indonesia