On September 8-9 2020, the board members of the Dreamhouse Foundation held a Mobile Library Making workshop. This workshop was held together with the professionals from the Department of English Education and the Department of Production Design at Duta Wacana Christian University Yogyakarta. The training was held in two days.
In this workshop, the board members of the Dreamhouse Foundation received material on developing good, creative, and fun mentoring methods for street and at-risk children. The mentors are also taught the concept design of a mobile library which will later become a reference in the Dreamhouse Mobile Library (Perpusling) program. The mobile library is currently under the processing stage.
On the first day of the workshop, Arida Susyetina, S.S., M.A. as the speaker, gave a presentation regarding information about the current state and condition of street children in Indonesia, particularly in Yogyakarta. She began the discussion by asking the mentors to discuss what efforts have been made to help overcome street children’s problems under the Dreamhouse mentoring program that has been implemented so far. At the end of the session, the speakers shared several interesting and innovative ideas that can be implemented in assisting children on the streets along with samples of media and game tools that can be used to support the activities.
On the second day, Christmastuti Nur, S.Ds., M.Ds as the speaker started the training by explaining the process of designing the basic concept of a mobile library and the objectives of the procurement program. The speaker who was also a volunteer at the Dreamhouse explained that the final product of today’s workshop was the formation of a good and functional mobile library concept that could answer the problem of fulfilling learning facilities for children on the streets.
The speaker then divided the mentors into several groups. Each group is assigned to discuss the problems faced in the mentoring process of children in all lines of activities that they have encountered and then write them down on the available post-it papers. The problems that have been found will then be discussed in the “Round-Robin Brainstorming” session where each mentor is required to provide solutions to problems that have been collected through simple to complex ideas that cannot be criticized by other members. This discussion aims to provide mentors with the opportunity to think beyond the boundaries that may have prevented them from implementing innovative and out-of-the-box assisting methods. Each idea that has been collected then classified as ideas with the same causal problem which will later be discussed together as a whole.
From the problem collection process, it was found that there were several general large groups of problem types in assistance activities by the mentors with children on the streets, which are: limited human resources, regulation of assistance activities by regional and central governments, budget allocation, activity mobility, inefficiency, and variation, and the influence of environmental conditions on mentoring activities. From these groups, the speakers then sorted out the types of problems based on the group of entities that are authorized to solve the problem, namely: Dreamhouse as the main institution, government, and third parties which in this case assist in the realization of the Dreamhouse Mobile Library Making program.
In the discussion regarding the problem of learning facilities in street children mentoring activities, all mentors together with the presenters then formed the concept of a mobile library in the next session. The formation of the library concept will be based on the problems that have been narrowed down, the basic needs of street children in several assisted areas, and the financial ability of the Dreamhouse. At the end of the session of the second day of the workshop, the mentors and presenters who will also act as the main product designer in making a mobile library agreed on one form of a library that will be made after the workshop. However, in the process of making the library design into a concrete final design, each mentor can still provide suggestions and input that might make the library design better and in line with its goals. Thus, the Dreamhouse mission to develop a learning program for street children can be implemented with the right target and be impactful in the future.
