GYV Alum off to Indonesia!

Alyssa is GYV 2010 and 2011 alum and currently a junior in high school. She  is also an athlete and aspiring future civil servant with a deep interest in learning more about other cultures. Alyssa is participating in Legacy’s Indonesia-U.S. Youth Leadership Exchange (IULX) and is now  in Indonesia! As part of her IULX project, Alyssa has put together an environmental project in her hometown of Broomfield that is encouraging her peers to reduce waste. She will be educating her fellow students on waste reduction and utilization techniques such as composting. Read more about Alyssa’s trip in an interview with the Boulder Daily Camera.

Gado-Gado Indonesian dish

Sixteen Indonesian students will be joining the Global Youth Village this summer as part of the Indonesian-U.S. Youth Leadership Exchange (IULX). Guess what we will be serving for dinner one evening during Session A?  GADO-GADO!

Mmmm…delicious

Try this outstanding vegetarian Indonesian dish made with authentic spices, eggs and vegetables. Our Indonesian youth who were here for summer camp at the Global Youth Village in previous years loved sharing their customs and traditions with other participants.  Making gado gado is the perfect way to promote intercultural communication and religious tolerance through delicious food and shared traditions.

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, and GYV promotes peace and reconciliation among the world’s diverse religions.  To learn more about the leadership training and intercultural summer experiences at the Global Youth Village, check out our summer programs page for 2011.

Ingredients:

Blanched/steamed vegetables
long green beans, cut into 4-5 cm long
Chinese cabbage, shredded
Bean sprouts

Fresh Vegetables

Lettuce
Tomato, wedged
Cucumber, sliced

Other Complements

Boiled/steamed potatoes, sliced
Boiled eggs, wedged
Fried/baked tempe
Fried/baked tofu
Lontong (rice cake with log shape), cut into 1 cm thick
Ready-to-use fried shallot
Melinjo nuts crackers
Brown rice crackers

Gado-gado sauce

10 cloves garlic, stir fried/fried/roasted
300 g roasted/fried peanuts (In this case, I used 1 cup of organic crunchy peanut butter)
1000 ml coconut milk
10 red chilies, discard the seed and stir fried/fried
1 tsp terasi substitute (dried miso paste or dry vegetarian soup stock)
1 block of coconut sugar (about 62.5 grams)
2-3 tbsp rice flour dissolve in a small amount of water

Sambal

20 chilies, boiled /steamed
1/2 tsp sugar
Sea salt as desired

METHOD:

Gado-Gado Sauce

1. Process garlic, peanuts/peanut butter, a half part of coconut milk, red chilies, terasi, coconut sugar in a food processor or blender.
2. In a sauce pot, combine processed mixture with the rest of coconut milk, stir and turn on the stove at low-medium heat. Stir occasionally.
3. Cook sauce until boiled, the volume reduced and the sauce surface looks a bit oily. Add rice flour mixture. Keep stirring until bubbling about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Sambal

Combine all ingredients and process in a food processor/blender or you can grind them with mortar and pestle.

Serving

Place lettuce, slices of lontong and boiled potatoes, blanched vegetables, wedges of boiled egg, slices of fried tempe and tofu, and wedges of tomato, slices of cucumber. Pour the warm sauce over, garnish with fried shallot, crushed brown rice crackers and emping nuts crackers. Put sambal on the side as people have different preferences when it comes to spiciness. You can omit the sambal if you don’t like the spicy sauce.

Tips

- If the sauce is too thick, add a small amount of water.
- Always try the sauce before you remove it from the heat so you can add salt or coconut sugar to match your taste buds.
- Serve gado-gado sauce while it is still warm. Warm up the sauce if it is cold.
- If you still have leftover sauce, keep it in a jar and refrigerate/freeze. You may use for other dipping purposes.

Indonesians launch community projects

Our 22 Indonesian students have returned home with plans to improve their communities.  Learn more about their projects. 

PROPOSED PROJECTS: GORONTALO

Barak and Awa: My Library is My Life

• Conduct a seminar at their school and five area schools about literacy/readership.
• Get the heads of each class (16 classes totaling 200 students) at their school to do a needs assessment as a way of evaluating what to purchase for the library; goal is 50-60 books.
• Redecorate the library (involving administration, student groups, local government, etc.)
• Start a school-wide class contest held each month (read-a-thon)

Fahri and Zein:             Culture for Our People

• Establish a community theater troupe focusing on traditional cultural performances; will draw young people from schools in the Bone Bolango municipal area.
• Establish a community magazine (published, not wall) that is entirely devoted to the writings of young people in the same area.
• Profits raised from selling the magazine and minor ticket prices for performances.
• Get other schools involved via promotion via seminars/presentations.

Siti and Yahya:             Healthy Canteen

• Their boarding school doesn’t have a canteen for students to eat in or provide food.  They want to build a canteen place that sells healthy food.  They’ll do a seminar at the school promoting healthy eating habits, a workshop for food sellers that sell at the school (five or six businesses) and build the canteen.
• After it is built as a model, will do workshops at 10-15 nearby schools, focusing on elementary schools so as to develop lifelong habits.  They’ll do presentations and workshops.

PROPOSED PROJECTS: BATAM

Qisty and Jeri:             School Environment Project

• Presentations about environmental issues at their school (there are 21 classes, 26 students per a class, and a total student body of 800 students.)
• Start daily school environmental patrols
• Recycle fair event with each class competing.  Money raised will be put back into environmental projects.

Ferry and Elsa:             English for All

• Start a community English class meeting 2x a week for 1^st and 2^nd grade children from an at-risk neighborhood.  20 students per class. Classes will  last 90 minutes.
• Get a wifi hook up for the classroom along with two computers.  Computers will have educational software for learning English installed and also be available for internet use and computer training.
• Get school supplies for the students.
• Monthly English competitions for the students to keep learning fun.

Debby and Arin:             Cleaning Out Our Environment (COE)

• Involving at least three high schools in their project
• Presentations at schools concerning environment – get facilities cleaned, separate trash, collect trash, etc.  Schools will be involved in the craft project.
• Start a recycled craft project.  After cleaning and sorting trash, they’ll put non-organic trash to use by remaking it as crafts which will then be sold.
• Crafts will be sold and proceeds will go towards buying cleaning supplies for involved schools.

PROPOSED PROJECTS: CILEGON

Nia and Aldi: Recycle for Farmers

• Involves seven area schools.
• Presentation at local schools, separating trash, and starting a program where they will collect the organic trash from the participating schools to compost.
• After three weeks of composting, they will provide the compost to area farmers as free fertilizer for their crops.  They’ll be collecting hay from the farmers to assist in the composting and as a way of involvement.
• Goal is to provide compost to at least ten farmers and provide 50kg of compost a month.

Reza and Sasky: One Hole Change the World

• Fundraising and education program to raise money and volunteers for building biopori.  Done through proposals, seminars, and school area competitions (photography contest with environmental theme as an example).
• Once funds are raised, students will create the tool for building biopori.
• Create 20 biopori in 10 area schools
• Create no littering signs and other pro environmental slogans in the same schools.

Cahya and Tulloh: Separation of Rubbish

• Seminars on garbage issues at 5 area schools (mixed elementary, middle, and high schools)
• Plant at least 10 trees at each of these schools.
• Get separate trash cans and signs for separating organic and non-organic trash at each school.

Syarief and Darwin: Let’s Start to Keep Our School Clean and Healthy

• Fundraise to get supplies for cleaning the schools and organize seminars about cleaning/environment at seven area schools.
• Establish weekly cleaning days at each school.  Organic trash will go into Nia and Aldi’s project.
• Organize a cleaning contest between the 7 area schools with a trophy that moves to the cleanest school each semester.
• Talked about ministry of education involvement.

Gandung and Shopi: Garbage is our Friend – 3 pg translate

• Separate garbage at their school and five area schools (presentations – one day seminars on environmental issues and recycling)
• Recycle fair between classes at the six schools.
• $$ raised via the recycle fair will be used to buy food that will be dispersed to poor families.

The Indonesian Youth Leadership Program is

Supported by the US Department of State – Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs