Our mission this year is to raise the funds needed to create our purpose built and designed community centre. We have already been gifted the land to use just for this purpose, by local community member Elias Selfius Fatu Raja.
The plan for this land is to create a community hub which will include both indoor and outdoor classrooms, an IT room, small library, music studio, kitchen, playground, skate ramp and vegetable patch.
Having all of this on one site will enable us to continue to provide quality education for the international students in the mornings, and then will allow us to bring the entire community together for all of our other workshops, classes and projects.
Once the centre is built, the ILC becomes financially self-reliant, as money paid by the international families to attend the morning sessions will entirely fund the community centre’s progress.
We are currently working with an architect to finalise plans for the centre. The main criteria for the design are as follows:
To use locally sourced, sustainable materials
To make the most of the natural landscape of the plot, using the lontar palms for shade
To include structures which benefit from the outside environment, as well as buildings which are more enclosed, formal work spaces.
Drawings for a concept for the ILC building, kindly drawn up by @alvarocarrilloarquitecto
Our vision for the ILC has always been to unite the community in a mutually beneficial way for all members, bringing together old and young, Indonesian and international in order to provide a bright future for all the people of Delha, Rote.
At the heart of the centre are two main aims: to provide quality childcare and education for the children of our community; and to unite and exchange knowledge with all members of the community, from early childhood to adulthood, both foreign and local.
The centre is primarily funded by members of the community who pay for either their pre-school aged children to attend the kindergarten, or for their primary aged children to use the centre to carry out their on-line learning in a safe and nurturing environment. This money is then used to fund ongoing projects and workshops which bring the whole community together with the aim of both helping and educating local people, and also learning from the local community about traditional skills and culture. We know that the children of this community - both international and local - are the future, and that the key to a harmonious future for them is to embrace both local culture and a passion for learning, and to create an environment in which that is possible. And that is what our centre is all about.
One community, under one roof.
This is the beautiful spot we have been gifted to build the centre on.
