Senayan City donates 1,000 books for Asmat children

The Senayan City Jakarta shopping center is open for donations of books to be distributed to children of the Asmat tribe, in Asmat Regency, Papua Province with a target of collecting 1,000 copies.

"For this program, we associate it with the festive season program from December 2 to January 8. We have placed two drop boxes in the south lobby and in the north lobby," Senayan City Retail Operations Manager Lucky Naftali said at the "Thank You Ceremony" in Jakarta, Wednesday.

Visitors and Senayan City employees can participate in the program by donating educational books that are put in a donation box that is available in the south and north lobby areas on the ground floor until January 8, 2023.

"So we also want to invite participation from visitors to Senayan City as well as from employees who work here," he said.

The corporate social responsibility (CSR) program, he said, was working with Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI) and the Maritime Maritime Potential Service (Dispotmar TNI AL) to distribute books in four villages in Asmat. In addition, this program also collaborates with Toko Gunung Agung.

According to the company, the book donation was made in an effort to support the Asmat District Education Office in its program to eradicate illiteracy in children. The donation activity was also based on facts from WVI which found that almost the majority of elementary school-aged children in Asmat could not read, write or count.

WVI's Education Team Leader, Marthen Sattu Sambo said that around 89 percent of children in Asmat could not read while 11 percent could read and understand the contents of the reading. This is based on a baseline survey conducted by WVI this year involving 3rd grade students in four schools.

Given this, he said, the types of books most needed by Asmat children who are the target of donations include books for learning to read, especially books with alphabet recognition complete with illustrated illustrations. The donated books will later be distributed to support the facilities that have been presented by WVI, namely the Reading House.

"With the (donation) of this book, later we hope to be able to bridge back access to, the most basic is a book with (there are) pictures," he said.

Meanwhile, Colonel (Mar) Budi Santosa as a representative of the Dispotmar TNI AL said that his party would help distribute books donated from Jakarta to Asmat, South Papua, using available facilities such as warships or airplanes that routinely carry out operations to eastern region.

"For the personnel involved in this distribution, we will just have to coordinate and map it out, especially for those in the regions. What is clear, for future shipments from Jakarta, we can use warships or aircraft that routinely carry out operations to the eastern region," said Budi.

SOURCE : https://papuabarat.antaranews.com/berita/24579/senayan-city-donasikan-1000-buku-untuk-anak-asmat