Alumni Update | Little Circle Foundation: Bridging Differences
Hats off to 2012-2013 UGRAD alum I Wayan Alit Sudarsana from Indonesia who has accomplished amazing feats through his NGO, Little Circle Foundation. Recently, we asked Alit to share a little more about his projects with us.
Right after I completed the Global UGRAD program in 2013, on May 9th 2013 I founded an NGO called Little Circle Foundation (LCF). LCF is a foundation focused on improving the quality of general and legal education, empowering people, and addressing climate change. Our vision is to bridge differences in Indonesia and the world.
Today LCF has more than 300 students in Indonesia. We teach elementary to senior high students along with several other programs such as conducting legal and computer training for teachers in Bali, promoting the use of open source software (Linux, Ubuntu), legal clinic program, LCF Scholarship, and many other programs to encourage young people to take part in the betterment of Indonesia and the world.
On May 2015, LCF received funding from the U.S. Government to hold a Youth Camp on Climate Change. This project aims to raise awareness about climate change, promote civic engagement for students, and increase the capacity for future leaders to solve environmental issues in their community and take real actions to help preserve the environment.
At this time, we are also doing a project called the Best of ASEAN program. This initiative aims to broaden ASEAN students’ perspectives on the region as well as prepare them for the ASEAN economic integration and beyond. We will send a number of Indonesian students to Thailand this September to start the program.
With regard to our scholarship program, we currently have 4 LCF scholars, all of them are part of the LCF Writing Scholar program. However, we are now focusing on giving scholarships to female students through our #teachagirl initiative. This initiative is crucial due to the fact that in Bali alone there are more than 1186 students dropping out of school annually because of financial disadvantages; moreover, due to the patriarchy system, parents have the tendency not to send the daughter to school, and LCF is working to change this.
In the effort of running all of this programs, LCF is blessed to have more than 60 volunteers and 4 staff members. We are working as a team from the planning to execution of our initiatives. Our short term goal is to raise funds for the scholarship program and for other programs related to education such as the Smart Library program.
I am currently pursuing my master of law in the Netherlands, so please do let me know if you have any chance to visit Netherlands, it would be more than awesome to meet you guys in a different continent.
Meanwhile, to know more about LCF, please visit the Little Circle Foundation website or our Facebook Page.
