Behind the Scene
The idea of Summercamp firstly and initially popped up in my
mind when my ex intern’s manager from China wrote me her gratitude to me. On February
I had two Chinese girls having exchange in my house under My tuition program,
Serdika Tutorial. She said that according to her intern, I provided very good
internship. Therefore the manager expected to maintain long term relationship
between my entry and hers. The Chinese was actually the third batch I had
interns in my tutorial house. The first was on August-September from Poland and
Germany. The second was on November-December from The Netherlands, and the last
was February-March from China.
Both of us corresponded to each other. In her mails she
stated that there were many Chinese students planned to visit Indonesia and
have exchange program. I thought about it and actually my capacity under
Serdika Tutorial only could handle maximum 2 interns, and not both of them from China.
I was in the between either to refuse or accept. Meanwhile,
I referred her to my exchange manager and my LCP. However, her offers wanted to
send 2-3 interns from China really intrigued my mind especially when she
addressed it directly to me.
I found my self thinking. If I accept her offer, I can’t guarantee
I will be able to provide the best internship for her because during may, june,
july, until beginning of august the activity in my tutorial house will be very
low.
In my town there is only one private university, Universitas
Quality. I know the chairman of the foundation supporting this university. That
random thought came to my mind: “why don’t I propose partnership with this
university?”
One day after a crusade event in Berastagi, I saw the chairman
came and at the end of it I came to him. I knew he’s very busy so I just asked
him his email address and told him that I wanted to offer him something about exchange
student.
Back home, nearly 12 Pm I sent him an email about it. And
just in one day I received respond from him. He invited me to do presentation in the
university, but in medan campus. I accepted it and I prepared y presentation.
The presentation consists of how I have been involving in
international affairs with students from many different countries. I took students
to overseas as well as invite from other countries to Indonesia. I also
mentioned how my tuition business has been a host for international students to
do their internship program. And at the and, I stated that we could work
together to establish an international exchange portal in Berastagi/Medan.
The chairman accepted my suggestion happily. Soon he
introduced me to other colleagues who became my partner in work. He also
recommended me to two guys in Berastagi to help me: Ganda and Wirza which are
my friends.
Before the summercamp..
This is the point where I didn’t know what to do and what to
plan. I had no idea about local students as I went to university in Jakarta. I didn’t
know anything about their culture. I was a blank! So, I conducted a research
among the students. The research was divided into two schemes: questionnaire
and focus group discussion. The correspondents were around 50 random students.
The objective of the research was to understand how
university students spent their semester break which was for about 3 months,
their interest if there’s an international learning atmosphere conducted during
the break, and their interest to join if such event was going to be conducted.
The result was very interesting. Most of the university
students don’t really have plan what to do. This is sort of contrary to my
experience when I was in university. I had part time job, internship program,
and even I went to Europe as exchange students. Other finding was the students
show interest on event conducted during the break.
After studying the research, I made the report and handed it
to the chairman. And once again I was asked to present the result in front of
the academic staff in Medan. But before, my partners, which from now I will
call as ‘committee’ started to develop the program.
Screening Process.
Honestly, screening process was started around 2 months
before the event took place. As the head
project, I actually hadn’t had clear picture of how the program will run
instead of just a mere idea. I took an initiative and started selection
process. I received so many applicants from around the world, not to mention Egypt,
india, Pakistan, china, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland,
south korea, and others. They showed interest on this project and their CVs
were very impressive. So, as I got their CVs into my email, I started to select
them into interview session. We discussed when the best time to interview and
in general the interview took place for 15-40 minutes. I interviewed everyone
and at the end there are 8 interns accepted: An Tran (Australia), Kevin Tam,
Yixian Pan, Jennifer Liu (China), Mandy Li (Taiwan). Agnieszka Witkowska, Jan
Grudenzki (Poland), and Talha Farooqui (Pakistan). Among them, only Talha didn’t
manage to come to Indonesia. The last
intern from South Korea, Gilsang Kim, didn’t go through interview session but
by sending his audio recording answering all the questions sent to him as a substitute
for interview.
Hatching the Idea
Hmm.. among the whole step of developing this program, the
most difficult thing is developing the idea, the thing is, none of the
committee had any experience making such project. It turns out that Summercamp
is the first international event consists of university students from 7
different countries in North Sumatera and Aceh area. We had long brainstorming
creating the concept and develop it into detailed program. We arranged every
program as well as the budget, consumption, and even the transportation. Most
of the meetings were held in Medan so many times Ganda, Wirza, and I must leave
Berastagi around 7.30 AM to Medan. We could have one day full meeting discussing
about the project and so on. Sometimes,
we were stuck on the same problem. When we tried to figure it out, we met
another problem.
Personally, I had big responsibility. I must in touch with
the committee and discuss the whole program planned well. I also must take
insight from the university students, the potential participants. And, I was
the only person whom the intern candidate could talk to regarding the projects
and stuff.
Quite often I encountered difficult times during the
hatching period. We tried to make something out of nothing. I must met others
expectation in accordance to this project. I dealt with many people. Did it
hurt? It did. Was it tiring? It was. It felt like I wanted to scream on top of
my lung. But we all must go on. The only comfort during those hard times was
the scripture from the Bible says “I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me.”
Just two weeks before opening ceremony, the general concepts
had been settled down. Everyone knew what would happen. We had well written
agenda. It was such a big achievements but it was far from enough. The real
battle was the actual event of the summercamp.
Arrival
There’s nothing more excited than meeting the interns. Before
we all met, we had intense communication through emails , facebook, and sms.
And among all interns and I, we even have facebook group, There we met each
other online, posted idea and stuff.
Exactly on 1st July 2013 our first intern
arrived, An Tran from Australia. Ganda, Wirza, and I fetched her up the
airport. We were very excited to meet her. After we fetched her we went back to
campus medan and there An had a chance to see other committee. Before we left
for Medan, we went to Hermes Place and had dinner together.
Second interns arrived was Agnieszska, and followed by
Gilsang Kim on 11th July. On 12th July we had Illia, Jan,
and Mandy arrived. The last was the team from China on 14th July:
Kevin, Yixian, and Jennifer. Among all of the interns, again, Gilsang Kim from
Korea has the most unique experience. A day before he came, he emailed me that
his flight was rescheduled. He was supposed to arrive at 7 PM, become 9 PM. On
the day he arrived, the biggest prison in Medan was burnt and hundreds of
prisoners escaped away and some of them were terrorists. Medan was in chaos.
Everyone’s panic. We had a notice from the chairman and other committee that we
should go straight to Berastagi after fetching Gilsang.
Around 9 PM, Gilsang arrived in Medan. We didn’t have any
idea how his face really looked like, But my intuition was right, from the
departure gate I recognized him. I noticed that he was in worry. I told to
others and we assumed he must lose his luggage. I took an initiative and got
into the departure hall which I wasn’t allowed to. I straight talk to him and
we saw the officer of his flight. We asked the officer and after intense
discussion, we found out his luggage was left behind in Kuala Lumpur when he
transited there.
Almost 10 PM and we planned to return back to Berastagi. I
asked Gilsang if he was hungry, He said he was so we went to fast food
restaurant and grabbed something for him to eat. Then we went back to
Berastagi.
On the way back to Berastagi, we encountered heavy traffic
jam. W e wonder it must be because of the jail break. All around North Sumatera
was in alert. Just 10 KM before getting into Berastagi, there was a big
inspection. The policemen patrol around and checked everyone’s ID cards,
especially the men to track down the escaper. Unfortunately, Ganda didn’t have his
ID card with him. Therefore, the policeman had take him with other people
without ID card. Of course, we must wait for Ganda to be processed. It was
cold, tiring, and in panic. But we tried to cheer up. We were thinking how to
solve this and finally Ganda said that if the driver and wirza go to his house
and take his ID card from his house it will be fine. So, Wirza and driver went
to his house but meanwhile Ganda and
others must move to the police station. Aga, An, and I followed him to the
police office and there also we met Wirza, Gilsang, and the driver with Ganda’s
ID card.
Even though Ganda was able to prove he was innocent citizen,
still we all must wait and finally we could go back to interns villa around 3
AM. What a long long day.. Ganda, Wirza, and I decided to stay in interns villa
that night.
