INDONESIA WRITING EDU CENTRE
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INDONESIA WRITING EDU CENTRE ~
CV Indonesia Writing Edu Center (IWEC) was founded in 2014, Surabaya. Now based in South Jakarta, it operates in three divisions:
1. Literacy & Education Program Consultant
This division aims to provide publicly-accessible consultation for children’s education and literacy through carefully-constructed programs.
The first is International Studyscape, which is a special program to equip students with the mindset, life skills and tools, and provide the experience that prepares children for holistic, decolonial international education. This arrangement facilitates an environment where they can learn and prepare for their journey to study abroad. Through the sub-programs organised in ISS, students will broaden their horizon and promote knowledge that is accessible, interdisciplinary, and can be found everywhere. Below are the key sub-programs in International Studyscape:
Your all-in-one community-driven
literacy education provider.
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It is important for students to survey and familiarise themselves with the different campus cultures in every university worldwide, to prepare themselves for the culture shock they might face and how to navigate that. We will visit different universities specialising in different majors. Not only will we tour the campuses, but we will also learn about the institutions’ socio-historical contexts and receive advice on surviving the education system there, directly from resident professors and researchers.
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Borrowing from Ki Hadjar Dewantara’s revolutionary educational movement during Dutch colonial times, this is a space, a thread of ongoing discussion where teachers, lecturers, researchers give a seminar on their studies or field of expertise and selected students will respond to the questions that they are proposing with their own perspectives. Thus this “garden of learners” collapses power dynamics and structures within academia, and embraces interdisciplinary praxis and knowledge production.
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Besides the traditional educational institution, we must acknowledge that non-formal organisations, foundations and numerous forms of communities sustain our society as enriching pillars in our collective knowledge production. Places such as museums, galleries, canteens, bookshops, community centres, collectives, and more, facilitate crucial dissemination of knowledge and compose the irreplaceable core of our culture-epistemic growth. By visiting these spaces, we will learn from the people who organise these spaces, and who tend to the resilience of different cultures.
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Similar to our Intercultural Experience program, this informs students of the thriving businesses run by immigrants, marginalised communities, and students, to show some of the existing emergent thinkers and contributors to the social economy. These businesses include restaurants, cafes, shops, publishers, tech developers, and other entrepreneurships. We will learn firsthand how the people within these enterprises operate and have a transformative impact on society.
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In preparation for the Taman Siswa Youth Talks, this intensive workshop is an incubator for the ideas which curated students will present. During this incubation lab, they will be mentored throughout the entire process; starting from brainstorming, research, abstract composition, writing and arranging the presentation, to the oral performance.
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Item After the trip, the students will write about their experience and the knowledge they gained during the trip from any place or anyone they’ve encountered. These essays will then be compiled into an anthology, which will be registered with an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), and printed for personal and distribution purposes.
The second is Festival Kendi Imaji is a literacy festival by IWEC which seeks to realise our philosophy of “meramban dan merawat segala warna ilmu,” foraging and tending to all colours of knowledge in a pot for all to later enjoy and to create together. We especially want this festival to empower children as sovereign makers in knowledge production, rather than the recipient of an adult’s dictation of knowledge and interpretation of stories.
2. Creative Academy
As the oldest operating division since 2014, IWEC has been working hard to practice and refine the curriculum and pedagogy of creative writing and academic non-fiction on a widespread basis. In 2017, IWEC launched a comic program that integrates creative writing with illustrative techniques and visual storytelling concepts.
IWEC continues to grow and deliver activities that respond to the needs of Indonesian society, especially as there is a lack of literary education that hones critical and creative thinking, resulting in the sustainability of our regular programs.
3. Publishing House
Since 2016, IWEC has been licensed to provide production and manufacturing assistance for students, professionals, and companies who need a portfolio as a branding through a book with an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) as a book copyright.
IWEC provides support through the entire publishing process, from the formatting, designing & editing, to the ISBN registration and final publishing process.
Certified and registered as an independent publishing house, IWEC is licensed to facilitate the international standardisation of our students' final project: knowledge production in the form of a solo book with an ISBN, issued by the International ISBN Agency in London. With an International Standard Book Number, the book can be used for college enrolment portfolio and the first step for students to become professional writers.
Dirintis dari akar rumput oleh Maylia E. Sutarto, seorang praktisi homeschooler yang memiliki mimpi progresif untuk pendidikan Indonesia, dan keluarganya, IWEC dimulai di pojokan perpustakaan di Surabaya, lalu sempat berpindah rumah beberapa kali. Hingga setelah berkali-kali jatuh dan bangun demi merawat literasi anak-anak Indonesia, akhirnya sekarang membangun rumah baru di Kemang, Jakarta Selatan.
Keluarga Maylia dengan anak-anaknya saat masih kecil.
Kelas IWEC dalam rumah kecil di komplek pada perbatasan Surabaya-Sidoarjo.
Sekarang, meski masih sebagai perusahaan kecil, IWEC terus berjuang untuk memperluas ruang aman, menumbuhkan dan merawat literasi anak-anak Indonesia, dengan terus mengembangkan kurikulum sesuai dengan kebutuhan zaman. Selain program unggulannya, ada juga program-program tahunan seperti International Studyscape dan Festival Literasi Kendi Imaji yang melibatkan kerja sama dengan institusi, organisasi serta komunitas internasional maupun nasional.
Para siswa-siswi nominasi IWEC Creative Awards (launching penghargaan) di penghujung malam penganugerahan.
Sejak 2014, IWEC telah membimbing lebih dari 300 murid dari berbagai kalangan, memeluk keanekaragaman dan ilmu lintas disiplin.
Our Team
Division:
Program & Outreach
Colour
codes
Division:
Publishing Production
Maylia E. Sutarto
CEO & Founder
Maylia is a sedulous activist for children's literacy in their early education, holding a Master's in Information Management from Universitas Airlangga. A fond experimenter of writing, she has been teaching and developing IWEC's curriculum based on Montessori’s learning method for two decades now. She was guest lecturer for Bachelor’s Degree in Desain Komunikasi Visual (DKV) at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) and Sociology at Universitas Petra.
Fairuza Hanun
Program Development & Creative Writing Mentor
Fai is a creative writer and independent scholar who works on IWEC’s programs’ research and development. While attending the University of Nottingham, they co-founded GENCONTROLZ Magazine. They’ve graduated as a study participant of Kunci School of Improper Education in Yogyakarta, studying alternative narratives as care work. Formerly, they were Assistant Editor at Asymptote Journal and Program Assistant at Jakarta Film Week international film festival. At the moment, they write articles for international magazines and engage in communal forums for education.
Michelle Hadipraja
Program Development & Digital Marketing
Michelle is an independent film critic and graphic designer who works on IWEC’s digital marketing. Part of the core team behind GENCONTROLZ Magazine, they dabble in marketing, editing, writing and web design. They hope to expand on their interests of intersectional feminism, film and sociology in their further studies.
Miristika Melfri
Publishing Design Lead & Visual Arts Mentor
On top of being a perceptive, spirited mentor, Mira is a storyboard artist with a Bachelor's in Visual Communication Design from Institut Kesenian Jakarta. She loves exploring art with others, finding more interesting ways to express everyone's stories with more than four years of experience.
Gabriel Martin
Illustrator & Comic Mentor
Martin is passionate about the world of comics and strives to elevate the Indonesian comic scene in his own way, with a keen eye for convincing storytelling. He has an interest in world history and in various forms of old world literature.
Qurrata Aiyunin
Illustrator & Designer
Kuro is a passionate illustrator and concept artist, whose hobbies are drawing and drinking coffee. Her life motto is to let it flow. Fun fact about her: tim bubur diaduk.
Vision and Mission
Our mission and vision haven’t changed, yet have only grown to facilitate and embrace plural contexts and ways of being. We aim to empower children through literacy-based education, where skills such as critical thinking, imagination and story-making become an interconnected, intellectual tool for children’s liberation and knowledge production.
We sustain a safe environment that cultivates foundational values of care, un/learning, non-linear growth, and curiosity.
Our dream is to make transformative literary education constantly accessible in other Indonesian islands, and third-world countries, and empower connections to the land.