Vicky Herianto Homo (Year 8) from Merauke is the first school student who received the mobile phone (and a pair of shoes) as part of CIRHSS outreach activity “KEEP SCHOOL CHILDREN LEARNING THROUGH COVID-19” in collaboration with Yayasan Surya Widya Kerthi (17 September 2020).
Vicky’s profile
Vicky Harianto Homo is one of the native children from Merauke, Papua Province, Indonesia. He is originally from Marind, the largest tribe in South Papua. He comes from Tomerau Village, but he is now living in Merauke City for his education. His father has passed away, while his mother is still alive. She lives with Vicky’s nine other brothers and sisters at Tomerau Village. Tomerau is about 54,5 kilometers from Merauke city.
Vicky is the only child in his family who moves to Merauke City to continue his study. He is now living with his older nephew. Vicky is continuing his study at SMP Negeri Buti of Merauke (Buti Junior High School of Merauke). He is now sitting in grade eight. Based on the information from his class-teacher, Vicky is one of the diligent also smart students. He was included one of the top ten students in his class and he always attends his class on time, even though he must walk about half and one kilometer to school every day.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Vicky and his other classmates should study from home. Some of them who have mobile phones are sent the learning materials/assignments by the teachers to be studied, while some other students should go to school to receive learning materials and assignments from the teachers to be studied. Vicky belongs to the second group; he must walk to school and take his weekly learning materials/assignment provided by the teachers to be learned/done, just because he doesn’t have a mobile phone that might be used to support his long-distance learning. According to Vicky’s class-teacher, Vicky doesn’t even have shoes to wear to school. Far before the Covid-19 pandemic, Vicky always goes shoveling sands to earn money after school, said Vicky’s nephew.
Below are some photos of the phone-donation delivery to Vicky.