English Goes to Kampung

English Goes to Kampung (EGK) is a grassroots organization founded by English Teacher and Activist Roswita Asti Kulla. Recognizing Education as a vital tool to alleviate poverty and gain access to job opportunities, EGK’s mission is to make education more widely accessible on Sumba Island.

Sumba’s children and youth, its generation of hope, are ill-prepared and ill-positioned to deal with the inherent challenges and opportunities of this new economic stimulus on their own. Few of the Sumbanese who live in rural villages (where poverty is at its most marked) speak English. Yet a basic command of the English language is an important stepping stone to tapping into job opportunities presenting themselves through the burgeoning tourism sector and other related sectors. There is a real need to provide Sumba’s village youth with resources to learn English.

In 2015, the initiative began with Asti conducting English and life skills classes for her students in local villages (kampungs) who were unable to attend school because the distance was too far or because they were struggling to meet the demands of daily survival. Today, the foundation reaches over 1,000 children along Sumba’s coastal areas and inland villages with 80volunteers organizing and coordinating activities.

Asty is driven by her concern for her island’s next generation. She herself comes from an impoverished background but has risen above it despite the lack of financial resources which has deprived her of the opportunity to pursue her own dreams for higher education.

She says, “I won’t let the next generation lose their hopes or dreams because of lack of money. I want them to live better, and to succeed in achieving their dreams for the future. For this, they must have jobs and they must learn work- and life-skills that will allow them to be self-sufficient. We desperately need resources – human and material – to achieve this and to prepare them for a world that globalization is bringing to Sumba”