March & April Update: A Perfect Foundation's Collaboration Centre Mapadegat, Mentawai Islands
March 2016 – We’re open again and it’s great to see our English classes filling up already. We have really promoted the classes amongst adults for this course, so it was great to see the beginner adult class almost full to the brim!
At the other end of the scale, our youngest class has already been learning their numbers. Over the break, we took the opportunity to take our Girls Surf Group in the boat to try out their first reef surfing, they coped amazingly well and a few brave ones took on some of the bigger drops at Telescopes – keep it up ladies!
March 2016 – We have started a pilot programme with our brightest young learners; over the next 12 weeks they will be learning English in an environmental context. We hope they will lead the way in initiating projects to create a greener future for their community. We are currently focusing on types of waste, decomposition rates and potential solutions for managing waste. We’ll keep you posted on our progress.
March 2016 – We are excited to be opening up our environmental initiative this weekend with a beach clean followed by an outdoor surf cinema. We also hope to premier our latest short video introducing our new campaign ‘Keep the Mentawais Beautiful’ – A Perfect Foundation Environmental Programme. Let’s hope the weather is kind to us!
March 2016 – What an amazing weekend! The community came together to clean up our local street and beach, and then we relaxed and enjoyed a night under the stars in front of the big screen. We hope to make this a regular event as part of A Perfect Foundation Environmental Programme. During the outdoor cinema we also premiered our latest short environmental video which had everybody in stitches, check it out!
Our teachers at the Collaboration Centre in the Mentawais were treated to a lovely Easter present courtesy of our neighbours. A delicious, sweet, coconut milk and rice ‘lemang’ cooked and smoked in bamboo and banana leaves. It definitely made up for the lack of a chocolate Easter egg this year!
March 2016 – Happy Easter from us all here in the Mentawais! We welcomed some special guests from the nearby Aloita Resort including Jamie Gray, the Director of The Perfect Wave. It was great to share a sunny afternoon with them, practice our English, surf in the beach break and beat them at Tug-o-war!
They also very kindly took our surf girls to Telescopes by speedboat; you couldn’t wipe the smiles off the girls’ faces!
Our younger students have been learning about the beach and life in the sea as part of their English classes. We decided to let them loose on walls of our kitchen and practice their new English skills while painting an underwater scene. A lot of mess and fun followed, we have some natural artists here, check out the pictures.
April 2016 – Another successful beach clean this weekend at the Collaboration Centre! It was great to see so many of our younger students get stuck in. After our hard work on the beach, we relaxed under the stars in front of the big screen and watched a great surf movie. We also showed the community our latest video from our ‘Keep The Mentawais Beautiful’ campaign – it was a hit, check it out!
April 2016 – This course has seen an increase in the number of adult registrations for our English classes which is great news. We have made a real effort to also offer our adult students various themed events and activities including movie nights, painting parties, and beach clean ups. These provide informal settings for our adults to practice their English. As the tourist season begins, we look forward to opening up our centre for more events like this and inviting tourists to ‘chat’ with our students.
April 2016 – We launched a drawing competition 2 weeks ago with the theme ‘Keep The Mentawais Beautiful’. It was a great to have entries from the whole community, not just our students, and witness the talent we have around us. We will post pictures of the winners soon – watch this space!
April 2016 – It’s hard to put into words the transformation that Mapadegat has gone through this last week. From a sleepy, quiet village to a bustling, busy hub! Amazingly, the village of Mapadegat was chosen to host the ‘The Mentawai Culture’ festival featuring a group of Sikerei men (shamans of the Siberut jungle) as special guests as well as visitors from around the world. For three days, on the doorstep of The Collaboraion Centre, we have been lucky enough to see a celebration of local Mentawai dancing, singing, food, traditions, and hospitality. Our students also took full advantage of all the visiting tourists and showed off their new confidence with their English – we were so proud!
April 2016 – …and the winners are…… Well done to everybody who submitted an entry into our recent drawing competition here at A Perfect Foundation’s Collaboration Centre. A special congratulations to James, Stevi & Sara who were chosen by the judges as the winners for their pictures illustrating the theme ‘Keep The Mentawais Beautiful’.
May 2016 – We welcomed two guests from Australia to our Collaboration Centre here in The Mentawais. Jason and Pete joined us for a week and enjoyed being a part of this friendly community, getting involved in classes and scoring some great waves. They were our first ‘Raw & Immersion‘ guests and won the weeks stay with us at The Perfect Wave’s fundraiser in Australia earlier this year. Their donation and support ensures A Perfect Foundation can keep up the great work we are currently doing here, thank you so much guys!
May 2016 – Thank you to all those who turned out to support our beach clean in Mapadegat. This was our 3rd beach clean and we still managed to fill 6 massive bags of rubbish. As the sun set, we constructed our outdoor cinema once again and enjoyed the mishaps and adventures in Endless Summer 2. There were also plenty of laughs shared for our latest video in our campaign to ‘Keep The Mentawais Beautiful’ – Ayo jaga keindahan Mentawai!
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