CLC Titian Tangerang Selatan (CLC Tangsel), which has already been in operation for about two months, has brought changes to the community, especially children. One of the challenges in the CLC neighborhood is children’s misbehavior. One of CLC neighbors, Ibu Meli, said that children in Suka Bakti have their own “gangs”, and their errant behavior ranges from mockery to throwing wood at each other. One way to resolve this is to get them involved in CLC Tangsel’s activities, such as reading/storytelling, learning to play music, learning computing, and playing together.
On Sunday, November 5th, 2017, CLC Tangsel held a socialization session on “The Importance of Reading” that aimed to get parents to instill in themselves the love of reading and then pass it on to their children. At the same time, this socialization is Titian’s attempt to boost interest in reading as well as promoting books that are available in the CLC Tangsel library.
Socialization on ‘The Importance of Reading’ started with storytelling by a Titian Foundation scholarship recipient who happens to be a talented storyteller, Olivia Sekar Ningrum. Olive, as she is known, narrated two stories, the first was about book reading, that reading a book is not about reading per se, but the essence of reading is understanding its content. With her story-telling style, Olive encourages children to love to read from an early-age. Children were so impressed by the storytelling that Olive presented, that Tamaro, one of the child participants said, “Kak Olive’s story is very good, and makes me want to read more. I will go to CLC more often to read story books, so I can be a storyteller like Kak Olive.”
Afterwards the storytelling was followed by an introduction about Titian Foundation, on its programmes and activities at CLC Tangsel, also opening enrolment for CLC courses and ended with giving prizes as a token of appreciation to the young avid-readers of CLC Tangsel. Children were very enthusiastic about the forthcoming activities at CLC Tangsel such as Magazine Club, English Mastery, and Science Club. The children’s mothers who were also present, equally eager with the sewing class. Ibu Septi Utami said, “The programmes at CLC are very useful and helpful, especially the sewing class that I took. I hope it can improve my sewing skills.”
What would be expected from this socialization on ‘The Importance of Reading’, is to encourage reading as a habit, hence in doing so, we can filter information that we receive and to not easily believe in false news. Titian plans to hold similar socialization sessions periodically and add other activities such as literacy contests for children. As suggested by one of the neighborhood children, Reinhard, the CLC should hold competitions in order to make people more excited to participate in CLC Tangsel’s activities. (KA)