The Mentari Project

The Mentari Project started in January of this year with a crew of four stalwarts and about ten (more or less) revolving volunteers . Thank you so much, faithful crew , for your commitment and patience these past three months! We couldn't have continued without ALL your help.

The premise of the project was to provide affordable tuition for primary school children at the low-cost flats in Desa Mentari. We wanted to set up a learning environment that was non-threatening, supportive with personal attention. We use a facilitator's (faci) role rather than a teacher role though the children all know us as 'Cikgu's ..:)

Among the objectives of the Project was :

• to build up children's confidence to speak up and think for themselves
• to provide an enjoyable learning experience
• help them catch up in school in knowledge of content and practice of skills in Science, Maths, English and BM

What we have learn this past three months about the children :


1. The children learn best from a mix of conventional methods and related activities to reinforce the learning objectives

2. Classroom sessions has to be broken up into sessions of 30 minutes followed by 20 minutes activities / work session with 1 faci per group of 3-4 children.

3. Each group has to be of similar abilities in the subject being taught so that children proceed at a similar pace. If not the brighter kids get most of the faci's attention. Yes, we do have bright and articulate kids in the group. All are energetic!

4. The weaker kids or those with learning disabilities (we have discovered some slow learners with literacy problems) need one-on-one attention but not for the whole session. There's one who may be dyslexic but more just suffer from short attention spans and a reluctance to think for themselves. (Too used to being spoonfed or ignored). Any volunteer with experience in teaching/diagnosing dyslexic children are very much appreciated.

5. The lack of English proficiency has hampered their understanding of Science concepts and instructions for Math problems

What we need from the Volunteers

1. Commitment of time for Saturday or Sunday slots - 2-3 hours for two to three consecutive Saturday afternoons (2.30pm - 5.00pm) for Year 4 and 5 or Sunday mornings for Yr 6 (10.30 - 1.00 pm) - to teach/ facilitate/coach

2. Submission of lesson ideas or activity ideas (English songs, games to help them remember English sentence patterns) via email and on the blog

3. Donations - materials, books, information

4. IDEAS! We would really appreciate any input on any topic linked to the Project from ALL

5. Patience and more patience! These kids need a mix of both discipline and understanding. They do not need pressure that they already get from home and school. The Mentari Tuition Place is where they learn to feel good about themselves and believe in their own abilities by doing what they couldn't before.

There's a similar volunteer program in US that has become worldwide called OnceUponASchool (www.onceupona school.com) and operates on the same premise but their focus is more creative language and using that is a window to learning.They have a roster of 1000 volunteers on their database for the first location in San Francisco.

This is definitely a small project with great potential for the kids and for volunteers. Hopefully we can work together towards making this project sustainable and giving these kids a chance. In fact people from low-cost flats in other areas have also requested for similar classes for their children. There is a minimum fee of RM25 per family for buy in and admin costs.


We'll keep in touch by email (mentariproject@gmail.com), this blog and we'll send the weblink for the website as soon as it's up.

God Bless and salam,

Mawarni