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AIAV’s INDOAUSTAY 2nd NORTHBOUND EXHANGE
FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS: 1st Dec 2009-13th Jan 2010The Australian Indonesian Association of Victoria Inc. (AIAV) A0028347E is offering through its company set up for the purpose, IndoAustay Ltd: Australian Indonesian Educational & Cultural Exchange, an exchange for some two dozen students completing Year 10 and Year 11 in 2009. Departure by Garuda Indonesia is from Tullamarine on Tuesday 1st December, 2009, and return to Tullamarine on Wednesday 13th January, 2010. A reciprocal movement of Indonesian students to Victoria is expected to occur somewhere between March and June 2010 for a stay of similar length. The exchange principle is country-to-country, not family-to-family.
The northbound exchange does not involve Indonesian language instruction, of which there is ample opportunity at school in Australia. Instead, it focusses on recreating in Indonesia the life that the students would be experiencing at home in Australia, but with all the differences attending immersion in modern Indonesian culture and the experience of making everyday use of their knowledge of Indonesian language. Australian exchangees drawn mostly from Victoria but possibly also from South Australia will be placed with host schools in and around Jogjakarta in Central Java and allocated to nearby homestays with families who have a son or daughter in the same school at the same or similar level. Exchangees, who will all have some knowledge of the host country’s language, will be subject to a very structured stay, built around the life of the family to which each is allocated for the entire stay, the immediate community and the nearby school attended.
The choice of Jogjakarta as locus for the exchange has been motivated by…
- IndoAustay having conducted one year earlier its first exchange there, following on from AIAV having already established a fortnight-long in-country intensive Indonesian language study programme for adults with the private educational organisation that serves as our organizing counterpart in that city, Pandu Indonesian Language Course (Pandu) directed by Mr Galang Lufityanto.
- Jogjakarta is a small city (about 500,000 inhabitants) in which one cannot get “lost”, with most of its interesting features very accessible; and enjoying good transport and telecommunications connections with Jakarta, Denpasar and beyond.
- It is also traditionally a very international city as you might say of Heidelberg in Germany or Barcelona in Spain, attracting a lot of foreign students and academics to its universities, with a population consequently sympathetic to their needs.
- Jogjakarta and the nearby city of Surakarta (Solo) represent the cradle of Javanese civilisation which underpins so much of Indonesian culture.
The exchange programme is therefore the product of much preparation and thought by members of the Australian Indonesian Association of Victoria and of a subcommittee set up for the purpose, one half of its members consisting of secondary school teachers of Indonesian Language. It follows a successful exchange in December 2008 – January 2009 and also rests on the prior experience of the AIAV which, through the initiative of one of its Vice-Presidents (and director of IndoAustay Ltd), Mr Tata Survi, has designed and operated since January 2007 fortnight-long intensive Indonesian language courses for Australians and conducted at the premises, and with the participation, of Pandu Indonesian Language Course in Jogjakarta.
Lester Levinson with the 2008-2009 exchangees prior to departure at Tullamarine airport.
In order that the exchange should benefit ultimately from an Australian and Indonesian focus wider than Victoria and Central Java, and in order to protect the AIAV and its membership from legal liability, AIAV set up, on the pro bono legal advice of the prominent law firm, Clayton Utz, a separate Public Company Limited by Guarantee (PCLG), IndoAustay Ltd, which will be able to admit as Members other like-minded organisations additional to AIAV, currently its sole Member. While the primary purpose will be to run the student exchange, AIAV’s Jogjakarta immersion courses are being folded as a separate activity into the functions of IndoAustay.
Just like last year, Australian exchangees will travel together from Melbourne and will be met at the arrival-exit hub airport of Denpasar by an appointee of IndoAustay, Mrs Thea Nelson, who will ensure they make their connecting flight from there to Jogjakarta. On arrival in Jogjakarta around 6.30pm of the same day, the exchangees will be accompanied by Pandu representatives to their homestays. From the outset, each exchangee and each host family will be allocated a Pandu contact person who will monitor progress and be available to solve any problems not easily discussed or resolved between exchangee and host family.
Two weeks after the exchangees’ arrival in Jogjakarta, two Australian teachers, Mr Tata Survi (see above), along with IndoAustay’s southbound exchange coordinator, Mr Ken da Costa, will also be in Jogjakarta for the ensuing month and available for on-the-spot liaison, remaining in touch with Pandu contact persons and participating in some of the extra-mural group activites planned for the exchangees.
Exchangees will live as a member of the family to which each is billeted, each having their own bedroom, furnished with bed, table and fan, but otherwise involved in all the daily activities of the family beyond their school attendance. They will be subject to the rules of the household and the school and will not be free to move beyond the confines of the immediate neighbourhood without prior approval of either, and in any case not beyond Jogjakarta except on family or approved group or school excursions with adult supervision, such as visiting Prambanan and Borobudur.
Australian exchangees and their parents are required to sign agreements closely modelled on those in use by Southern Cross Cultural Exchange, setting behaviour guidelines, and protecting IndoAustay and the AIAV and their members against recourse for risks to which the exchangees could be exposed and for risk to third parties that could be caused by exchangee mishap or misdemeanour.
Notes concerned with travel and homestay will be issued from the time of the 1st June 2009, Exchange Information Evening in Melbourne for prospective exchangees, their parents and teachers. Additional notes will be issued at the time of the Cross Cultural Information Day scheduled for Saturday 14th or Sunday 15th November, 2009. This includes references to Australian Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade travel advice in respect of Indonesia.
It goes without saying that Indonesian language, polysyllabic like English and all other European languages, and uncomplicated by the tonal distinctions of some important East Asian languages, and written in the Roman alphabet as phonetically as Italian or Spanish, is perhaps the most convenient of all languages for gaining access to an Asian culture. Such access is already vital for Australia to play a significant rôle in its region, and exchangees and their families are to be congratulated on chosing this language for study. We expect the exchange programme will enhance Australian students’ insight into an Asian culture at an influential stage in their scholastic and civic development, as well serving as a huge incentive to advance their Indonesian language studies.
The AIAV and IndoAustay are unfortunately not “cash boxes”. Just as AIAV has been totally reliant on its legal needs being met generously by Clayton Utz, it is now seeking financial help or assistance in kind from Australian business (including the services of an honorary auditor), the community at large and from AIAV’s members for the establishment and corporate maintenance of IndoAustay Ltd. For this reason, the majority of exchangees will be self-financed (as with the immersion courses already). But we have the eventual aim of supporting a proportion of Australian and Indonesian students whose families are unable to afford participation. We are seeking therefore both business and private help for this also.
Critical dates
Exchange Information Evening Monday 1st June, 2009
Applications Deadline Monday 22nd June, 2009: deposits payable
Acceptances sent to applicants Monday 13th July, 2009: apply for passports
Balance of Fee Payable Monday 31st August, 2009
Cross-Cultural Information Day Saturday 14th/Sunday 15th November, 2009
Departure from Tullamarine Tuesday 1st December, 2009
Departure from Jogjakarta Tuesday 12th January, 2010
Return to Tullamarine Wednesday 13th January, 2010
The Exchange Information Evening is from 7.30 to 9.00pm on Monday 1st June, 2009, at the Green Lecture Theatre, Level 1, University of Melbourne’s Hawthorn campus, 442 Auburn Road, Hawthorn. Melways 59E2. See map below.
Contacts:
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