“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost”

BERITA LAINNYA - 06 February 2021

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost”

Rev. Billy Graham.

            Two days ago, on 6^th February 2021, SMAK PENABUR Harapan Indah (SMAK-HI) held a big event, Character Day’s closing ceremony. It enclosed all the activities run during this event. This school’s program had started since October 2020 and finished in January 2021. All students learned how to improve and build their character in groups. Every class was divided into 2 or 3 groups where each group was led by a teacher, who played a role as a mentor. They met in virtual meeting, zoom, weekly.

Students had to learn 4 topics in this program. The first topic was Religion. Here, the students and their mentor were discussing about faith, especially Christian Faith. After that, the students choose their own activity to help them understand more about their belief, such as having daily morning prayer, reading Bible, praying for other people, family or friends, etc.

Since SMAK-HI put a concern on how the young generation lead a life in the era of social media, we chose Attitude as the second topic. The freedom to think and deliver a speech is sometimes borderless. Yes, we can speak freely but we need to know that we have to be responsible for what we have written or shared in the column comment in the social media, so did the students. Therefore, in the second topic the students and the mentor were having a discussion about their experience related to how they behave on social media. Next, they did some activities to practice it like sending a message or chatting positive things to their old friends that they had not yet contacted for a long time.

The following topic of Character Day was Time Management. The topic is very significant for youngsters to help them put the first priority on the top list, “first thing first. At first, the mentor was discussing the topic with the students before helping them arranging and managing their daily activities. We had hoped that the students would know what their priority was and hopefully could apply it as a habit; able to choose study as the first thing to do before other such as playing games or hanging out with friends on week days.

The last topic was Kaizen. The word “Kaizen” comes from Japanese word, Kai which means change or berubah in bahasa and Zen means good or baik in Bahasa. Thus, we can say that Kaizen is a process of doing something better or continual improvement, or Berubah menjadi lebih baik. The activities that should be done by the students at that time were cleaning their own room. They may choose the area to be cleaned. It could be the closet, the bookcase or their desk. By doing KAIZEN, we as mentors were expecting that they will continue these activities not only during this program but also after the program ended.

There was also a final project for each group to perform before the end of Character Day program. They had to arrange a social project in which they had to plan, prepare and do the project themselves. For example, Sir Jerry’s group, they taught our administration staff, office boys, and librarians to use English for daily conversation. All the members of the group must involve in this activity. Another group, Bu Valentina’s group, also taught English but specialized for kids grade 3 and 4. Other groups were also having as interesting projects as the previous groups, such as giving a service at Sunday school, at church youth, at the orphanage, etc. Usually, we paid a visit to those places to do the project. But unfortunately, because of the pandemic, we did all of them virtually. We were grateful that all projects could run very well.

Finally, the closing ceremony of Character Day was revealed. We started the ceremony at 7 o’clock by checking the students’ attendance and then, continued with the morning devotion which was led by Loshi Meisy, our Mandarin Teacher. We pray for Jesus’ blessing and guidance for the event to run smoothly especially for the internet connection. Our closing ceremony was led by our favourite MC, Bu Maria and Jonathan from 11 Social 2. Both of them were a great team where they could enliven the event. Moreover, there was something special and unique with the closing ceremony. Not only the MC who spoke in English but also the speakers, the students and even the parents did speak and write in English. We were so bowled over on their enthusiasm during the event.

After the morning devotion, we sang our national anthem “Indonesia Raya” and then read aloud our school vision and mission together and then was closed by singing “Mars BPK PENABUR”. Next, we were listening to bu Siwi’s speech, our Principal, as to open the closing ceremony of Character Day. After that, we were shown our students’ final projects which was played in 2 sessions by English Day team.

We finally came to the core of the event that is Chit-Chat with 2 great speakers, Eloy Zalukhu and  Elisa Jonathan. The topic of the talk is ….. Eloy Zalukhu is a motivator, Theocentric Motivator, Team Alignment Facilitator, Sales Training Expert, Leadership Coach and Corporate Culture Consultant. (www.eloyzalukhu.com). While Elisa Jonatahan is a model, social worker and was the first Runner Up of Miss Indonesia 2019 competition and a medical student at University of Indonesia. (www.instagram.com/elisajonathan)

Mr. Zalukhu was sharing a lot of things about character in the first session, how his experience at young age helped him build his character now. He also told us how important Christian Faith for us to fulfill our life goals. Mainly for the students, he said that they really needed faith to face today’s modern era. Moreover, he told us to be brave and tough, “It is okay, to fail, failing is good”. We of course must take this quote carefully. It is okay to be fail, indeed. But we need to keep in mind that it is not an excuse but being brave for trying, again and again. Whenever we fail, we evaluate and then try again. If we fail again, we repeat the same cycle until we reach our goal. Mr. Zalukhu spent one hour session with motivation, answering question from parents and students. It was so inspiring moment.

In the second session, we had Elisa Jonathan. At first, she shared her experience when she joined Miss Indonesia competition. She always prayed to God for the best thing in her life during the competition. It strengthened her fighting spirit. She also learned how to manage her time during the competition and how to have proper attitude. It was obvious that she is a humble person too although she is a famous figure now. Furthermore, she told us that Character is more important than anything. “My mom is a hard woman. She told me, not to be arrogant”, she said. Elisa’s experience as a medical student at UI and at MONASH UNIVERSITY - DEPT OF PLASTIC SURGERY reminded the students to manage the time well to reach their dream. We hope that Elisa story could inspire our students to reach their dreams in the future. Elisa spent most of the time answering questions from parents or students. This session was full of joy.

In between the two sessions, we have 30 minutes breaktime. While the students were having their breaktime, the English team played some motivational music and photos of our students’ final project on the zoom screen. After the breaktime we did the first game, an interactive game. The game was led by our English team, Zefanya and Paulina as the MC and Jericho who is in charge for the game. Next was asking 2 parents to share their opinion about Character Day program and how this program change their son or daughter’s life. We were so grateful that they deliver it in English.

In the last part of the closing ceremony, we gave appreciation for 17 best participants. They were chosen by the mentor based on the data gathered during the program. The indicators were being active, never coming late to the meeting, always opening the camera while meeting, having good manner, the score of self-evaluation and the observation by the mentor on how well they do their weekly personal project during Character Day program.

Here are the 17 best participants during Character Day program:

   Before the closing ceremony ended, our English Day team launched the final game, Kahoot. The 10 best participants would get reward from English Day team. After the game, the event was closed with a prayer from Frau Sonya, our beloved German teacher.

  This event was unforgetable experience for SMAK HI. We, both teacher and students, had learned many things from Character Day in 6 months. Moreover, this is also our first experience using Zoom Webinar for such a big event. We have more than 500 participants. We were a bit worried at first for upcoming problems that might occur during the closing ceremony. But however, in the end there was nothing to worry about. A big success for the closing ceremony of Character Day.

 Here are some of the parents’ impressions on Character day:

“My daughter is not fluent in English nor star in class. But when her team needed somebody to buy some gift for the orpanage, she volunteered. The teacher transfered the money and we helped her to buy things for orphanage. Simply make me proud”

                                                                                                            Felix Setiadi

“My daughter has changed. Her character is growing after following this program. I'm so grateful. Personally, I like kaizen because my daughter now likes to help the house chores”.

                                                                                                        Sanjaya Werta  

“By joining the character day program, my son will gain more wisdom to always be grateful for what God has given, thank you BPK PENABUR HI”.

                                                                                                      Rimma Nischolas

“Since my daughter joining Character Day, she becomes more patient and  pray more often. Thanks PENABUR HI...👍👍”.

                                                                                                                       Eeng

“Our son has gained more responsibility and empathy since joining this program. Hope he can build up good character more. Thank you SMAK PENABUR HI. We hardly wait for the next project. God Bless”.

                                                                                                              Augustinus

            Finally, SMAK PENABUR Harapan Indah is really thankful and gives high appreciation for every participant, committee, students, parents, who have joined this event. We really hope that this program will give good impact to our students for their better future. Jesus Bless Us.

Bekasi, February 6^th, 2021.

History Teacher , Kevin Bob S

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