People in the past believe that knowledge is everything. At every level of society, knowledge has its unique role to determine whether someone is worth to recognize by community as to be known or deserving to have a higher social status or not.
Emma, a novel by Jane Austen, published in 1815, capturing a reality of women social status in England. Although someone has lower social status just because of poor in economy, they are possible to reach a higher status through a specific marriage by using their intellectual and skills. Jane Fairfax, is represented in the story as a poor woman yet smart in writing, playing piano, dancing and communication. Thus, with her knowledge and skills, she was encouraged by her friend, Emma, to marry a gentleman instead of marrying an ordinary farmer. While Emma, who is told in the story, as a rich, high-class woman and having much money with her skills in painting and playing piano, is told as a woman who at earlier preferred not marrying anyone.
Information to intellectual
Nowadays, knowledge is no longer limited to get, mostly for people in big cities. Internet can make everyone’s head full of information by instant. With new knowledge made of information, people will be triggered to compare and make any changes for their life. At certain level, people will be moved to make improvement in their activities for a better life. We can get anything from Internet. Free language course, online high education lecture, marketing tools, how to farm, personal development, how to make a startup, how to play music instruments, and other unlimited resources.
But such never exhausted information source in today 25 years old of World Wide Web or 45 years of Internet, where human have been uncovered for having huge information, are never experienced by most people in a region in West Bandung, named Cimenyan.
Cimenyan, is a district in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, where the headquarter of Portalkata Indonesia (Potahouzz) is currently located. The land where the SOHO (small office home office) building stand, was firstly found by accident by two of the company founders. The land is surrounded relative closely by two mountains, Palasari and Manglayang. And luckily, the east side of the building facing East proportionally so every day we are served with different sunrise views. There is a spring water in a rice field in the south side of the building. In summer like this August, the area of the land is never exhausted of water flow.
Realizing that we stand in a very fertile soil, we never want to hurt the land. We always want to let the land free. Just let the plants live there. Let the worms, frogs, toads, snakes, dragonflies and microorganism live in the soil. To preserve the ecosystem, we grow some plants of vegetables and fruits. Such eco-friendly environment surrounding the SOHO, creating a specific comfort place that ideal for media content and translation services company like us. A fresh air, quite place. At late noon to night, animals start making their beautiful, relaxing sounds. Isn’t it ideal for such writing and research activities?
Each of the company top managerial member is or former professional who brushed up years in best companies abroad and the capital city. The author itself also ever worked and lived in big city, Jakarta for long years. But that is not a big deal whether we live in a crowded, full of pollutant city or a green land. Everything is a process if it is not a choice. A happy or unhappy working should not be measured by any dimension, should it? We can say time and place as a hardware that is relative and dynamic by nature, and our mind of intellect we may call it as the software. Both aspects, shall work in harmony giving us meaning if our inner intellect which is called as the firmware, a hundred percent working to provide the true meaning.
The beautiful, happy nature of the area, on the other side is contrary with the people live there. Most people in the area do not have access to education. Most adult to youth got education to elementary or junior high level only. Girls are averagely getting married while their age are 14 or while they are in first grade of junior high school. There are only two to three schools that need to access about 4 to 7 km long on foot. There is no public transportation and poor farmers do not have private transportation for their children go to school.
Starting with many children that always reading books in our mini library plus the said reality did not take long consideration for us to make a small effort. Within our working activity, in early morning for 2 hours in three days and on Sunday, we perform an informal free universal based school for 20 to 25 children. English as intermediate language is only a medium to attract students with something new. The ideal goal of the education itself is for building character with skills targeted on drawing, mapping, writing and farming through a fun and happy schooling method. This August is right the second year of the schooling performed. We believe that this culture based approach of education will bring local wisdom and bright future for our children.*** Siti Nur Aryani
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