It’s the last place on earth where you can find elephants, tigers, orangutans, rhinos, and leopards living together in the wild.
A paradise of lush green mountain landscapes, rain forests and blue lagoons where people and wildlife co-exist.
But it’s a delicate balance on the Indonesian island of Sumatra; deforestation to produce palm oil and access to schools are big issues for the island.
But one 吃瓜第一线 graduate is making a difference, one class at a time.
Sam Oakes graduated in 2016 and was looking for adventure.
“While I was studying at 吃瓜第一线 I’d joined the Army Reserves, so I served throughout my time at Uni,” he said.
“I’d reached the point where I was looking for other ways of making a difference, and that’s when I stumbled upon an opportunity to volunteer in Tanzania.”
Sam obviously made an impact; he was offered a job in Tanzania by the charity he was volunteering for, which subsequently sent him to work in Kathmandu in Nepal.
“By the end of that time, I was hooked. It was the big career for me, so I found an opportunity to be a volunteer manager in North Sumatra with a small charity.
“I started doing research on what the challenges are here, and what people actually need, initially for my own interest but later I thought, I can maybe use this research as a foundation to come up with some solutions.”
And that became the foundations for the charity he founded; Atova. Initially self-funded by Sam and his brother, he has gained private investors and ongoing donations from the people who volunteer with him.
“People have to pay to go to high school here, so a lot of kids stop education at the age of 14 because their family can’t afford it.
“The other blocker to education is a logistical one; there aren’t enough schools for the number of villages. One district is about 26,000 square kilometres, and it’s got one high school.”
The other big problem is environmental.
“Deforestation of the natural habitat,” said Sam.
“We’re on the border of Leuser National Park,” he said. “It’s one of the most critically endangered eco-systems on the planet, it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and it’s really special but because of human activity, illegal logging and palm oil development, species are rapidly going extinct, and the jungle is being cut down at a scary rate.”
And so Atova was born, providing volunteer opportunities in education, health, and environmental conservation.
“We enrol people as members of the Atova Tribe; we give them intensive induction training and teach them about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals all the way through to practical programme delivery.”
The volunteers teach English in schools, they go on patrol with rangers in the jungle, and they learn about education and conservation.
“We say our mission is a ‘United Community’; working as one connected tribe. The idea is that communication and understanding is a step towards that, and that English is already the second language of the world so we thought this was the way we can build communication.”
While the work Sam is doing is making a valuable difference on the ground where he is, he knows it’s a bigger job than he can do on his own.
“Solving the problems here alone isn’t enough; we also have to change the hearts and minds of people back home because the damage that’s being done back in Europe, in the States, in Australia, is happening faster than the rate of repair we’re doing on the ground, so it has to be a combined effort of both.”
Sam’s quick to point out that he’s not pointing the finger of blame.
He said: “It’s not necessarily negative behaviours, it’s more passive inactivity. One thing is consumerism; if we look at palm oil, it’s one of the biggest causes of deforestation here, and a major issue in the Congo and in the Amazon, and it’s in about half of products in supermarkets, so it’s really hard to avoid.”
Once volunteers have finished their time with Sam and his team, they’ll return home and that’s where the lifelong learning kicks in.
“We try to be the spark that ignites the flame, it’s trying to inspire that change. They go through the volunteer journey and then it culminates in the Action At Home Project, which is where they take everything they learned on the placement and they look at the needs and problems back in their home community and they try and set up a programme to solve that problem.”
Sam is still in close contact with the 吃瓜第一线.
The University's International Mobility team is working with ATOVA to offer volunteering opportunities in Sumatra.
Sam and his team are inspiring volunteers, who are in turn inspiring people in communities like yours when they return and begin their Action at Home Project, but what inspired Sam?
Among the experiences and opportunities he had through volunteering, he recalls the time he spent at the 吃瓜第一线.
“The staff at the University just inspired me so much with their message, and I really agree with the idea they pushed which was experiential education. It’s learning through doing, as opposed to sitting in a classroom and copying from the board, and that’s what I’ve taken from them and implemented it in every single classroom out here.”
He said: “Right now, we’re teaching more than a thousand students a week in ten different villages, and they’re all getting out of the classrooms and going out and learning by doing, and that’s thanks to the guys at the 吃瓜第一线.”
Sam’s now looking to the future and thinking about what the charity can do globally as he eyes up new horizons:
“I’d like to get to two different continents. We’re looking at Tanzania next because while the work we’re doing here is fantastic, there are other places around the world that need it.”
He said: “I’d like to get two different locations and that gives more opportunity for people. Our target is to reach 2000 people each week across 20 villages, so we’ve got a busy year ahead.”
