Books in a Box for Madrasah - by Matt - Semarang

The Books in a Box program is a great way to provide badly needed educational materials to schools and organizations which would normally not have access to similar resources. As such, at the 2006 Indonesian English Language Fellow Mid-Year conference Damon Anderson informed the English Language Fellows that the RELO office would like us to actively look for schools that were in dire need of English teaching materials. With this in mind, I went back to my host institution, IAIN Walisongo, and began to ask the lecturers and administrators if they knew of any schools that would be interested. After a few days, I came in to contact with Ruswan, whose wife is the principal at a Madrasa located an hour outside of Semarang. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to present this contribution from the US State Department and RELO to an Islamic elementary school and hold a workshop on how to best utilize these resources.

Outcomes of the event:
Upon arrival at Nahdadul Ulama Madrasa IB Tidaiyahearly early Saturday morning, I was immediately struck by how excited the participants were to have me there. Brangsong is an extremely small village, and the villagers have little contact with Americans. With this warm and friendly welcome, I knew that the event was going to be a success. I began the workshop by telling the teachers and principals that the ‘Books in the Box’ was a gift to this particular Madrasa from the US State Department and RELO. However, I also informed the teachers and principals from other elementary schools that they were welcome to come and utilize these resources. Upon saying this, the room grew extremely silent. I thought I had done or said something offensive, but after a few minutes the participants began to tell me how grateful they were. They also expressed their surprise. Apparently, they were under the impression that the United States was unwilling to help Madrasa and Pesantren because they produce future terrorist. I assured them that this was not the case, but I think the gift has gone a long way in changing the opinions of the teachers and principals in attendance. Fantastic! After this, we had a very fruitful discussion on how to utilize the ‘Books in a Box’ resources. Basically, this talk revolved around how the materials could be used to help the student pass their exams.
Obviously, this event was a great success. While the workshop was great, I feel that the most important thing was showing the principals and teachers that America is indeed willing to help improve the educational climate in Indonesia. I am sure that the participants will return to their respective schools and tell their peers and students this