Dec 2023 – Jan 2024

Indonesia Service Trip

Bandung, West Java, Indonesia

• Traveled to Indonesia to complete a 2 weeks service program focused on sustainability, anthropology, and circular economy. Partnering with the School of Business Management, Institute of Technology Bandung,

• In class, we learned about topics such as cultural identities, low vs. high context societies, models of cultural norms, conflict management styles, and the Bahasa language.

• Field activities included circular economy learning with Teras Hijau Project, and community education learning in Sakola Motekar.

Reflections: The life cycle impact assessment tool taught through the Teras Hijau Project is useful for many aspects of my career since I now can characterize and assess the environmental impact of any production/manufacturing process.

Further, the various challenges and conflicts identified at Sakola Motekar shed light on the greater dilemma of education in under-developed regions of the world; these dilemmas include the lack of governmental funding and the local's lack of business know-how to acquire proper sponsorship and donation for up-scaling the non-profit.

On this trip, I was exposed to so many interesting ways of life and culture, learning about the country's day and nightlife, its industrial composition, its music and dances, and most importantly, its wonderful people. I like the speech given by the co-founder of Sakola Motekar at the end of the program. It went something like this:

the standard of living in Sakola Motekar is low, and so is its people's standard of happiness. What's important is that people have found happiness in their simple ways of life.

So whenever I feel my life is hard, I can look back to my time at Sakola Motekar, and find my simple happiness again.