HELPING HANDS
Today, more children in East Nusa Tenggara are going to school. This is a glimpse into how OPPO Indonesia helped make that happen
PAUD FRANSISKUS RAJA DETUGAU, a school for early childhood, was established back in 2016 in the village of Tiwu Riwung in East Nusa Tenggara. At the time, the school consisted of a building with bamboo walls, a tin roof and floors of rough cement – hardly an ideal place for young children to learn.
Fast forward to today, and the school looks completely different. Earlier this year, in March, construction of new facilities began, and now PAUD Fransiskus Raja Detugau has a proper building with two classrooms that are furnished and equipped with educational toys. There are proper toilet facilities and even a playground. Even better: Similar changes have been implemented at PAUD Cerah Ceria in the village of Bhera, about 220 kilometres east of Tiwu Riwung.
The story of how these two schools were refurbished goes all the way back to last year, when OPPO Indonesia initiated the OPPO Find School CSR program in collaboration with Happy Hearts Indonesia. This particular CSR initiative, by the way, raised funds through a digital auction of an exclusive collection created in collaboration with designer Patrick Owen. Called Orbitale, the collection is centred around the brand’s flagship phone, the OPPO Find X2 Series, and features the colours and textures of the vegan leather used on the OPPO Find X2 Pro Tea Orange. Furthermore, the collection encompasses online game applications, a fashion collection for the spring/ summer 2021 season and furniture. Auction of the furniture pieces, in particular, accounted for the biggest share of the funds collected – around 580 out of a total of 740 million.
Of the three pieces made available, the Chess Table was won by Hyppe Teknologi Indonesia, while the Cards Table went to PT. Meeting Convention Indonesia – better known as MCI, and the Billiard Table is now at LDS Lifestyles.
“When I heard that my friends at OPPO
Indonesia were organizing a charity event to help provide these children with a proper place to study, I was motivated to contribute for our younger generation,” explains Lal De Silva, the founder of LDS Lifestyles, about his company’s involvement.
“This is a manifestation of our concern for the future generation of this nation, in this case for their education, particularly in regions that still lack proper learning facilities or have been affected by natural disasters,” says Magindran Marieappan, Director of Hyppe. “We hope that this collaboration between OPPO and the Happy Hearts Indonesia foundation can inspire people to care more about the education of the generations who will move this country forward.”
This is a sentiment shared by Bernard Akili, Managing Director of MCI. “It’s truly heart-warming to see what the Happy Heart Foundation has done for the less fortunate children seeking better education. We sincerely hope that our small contribution will help these children to get proper school facilities, development programs and create sustainable learning environment.”
Creating a sustainable learning environment is certainly a fitting way to describe this entire journey, as OPPO Indonesia is dedicated to continue raising more funds to build more schools in the future. Seeing the social impact of the two already constructed so far, this initiative certainly bodes well for many youngsters with big dreams for the world to come.