The Wana tribe is an unreached people group (UPG) dwelling in the forests of the Central Sulawesi region. They build huts in the treetops and live among the trees. This tribe has been isolated from modernity for so long they’re very wary of meeting new people.

The population of Wana is around 8000 people and they’re undeveloped in all aspects of life. PESAT has been reaching the Wana people through several ministry programs, one of which is education. We have served children of kindergarten, primary and middle school age. The number of those participating in education has increased over time. The teaching of general knowledge has changed their lives for the better. .

A Story of the Wana Children : ------------------------------- The First Experience Going into a City
PESAT’s ‘thanksgiving’ event for 20 years of ministry brought a few of the children from the deep forest of Sulawesi to the cities of Jakarta and Surabaya (East Java). This is the first time they have ever seen the outside world rather than their daily world of the mountain hills.

These children are 9 and 10 years old. There are currently around 100 children of their age who have been educated by PESAT team in dormitories in the middle of the forest. Education has impacted on their lives, their life patterns have changed, they no longer live in the treetops and slowly give up a nomadic life. For the last three years they have been settled in 3 locations and many more children attend the school.

Three of them, Yani, Simson and Adelia, sang and greeted people at the PESAT 20 years of Thanksgiving event. It was encouraging and proud to hear them introduce themselves in English, “Let me introduce myself, my name is Simson and I come from suku Wana”. What an amazing thing that God has done in the lives of the Wana people.

Yani was so excited when she told of her first experience of flying in a plane. They’re the first Wana people to have flown in a plane. In Wana, a child of her age would have been married and each has gone through the cycle of marriage and divorce many times. However, this is now rare. Holistic transformation has started to happen amongst the Wana Tribe.

Yani begitu bahagia menceritakan pengalaman pertamanya naik pesawat udara, mereka adalah orang Wana pertama yng naik pesawat. Di Wana, anak seusianya sudah dikawinkan, dan tiap mereka mengalami kawin-cerai berulang-ulang sepanjang hidupnya. Tapi kini hal serupa tidak lagi ditemui. Transformasi menyeluruh telah terjadi di Suku Wana.

 

>> A Teacher for Sakai People

Across the river and on to the depth of the forest, also it takes a long walk until you can get to a village of the Sakai people. Mariaty just finished her Kindergarten Teacher’s Training and sent out to teach the children there and live among the people. Now there are 35 children from different ages group. She divides the children based on their age group so that she can teach them accordingly, starting at kindergarten age, a group of 6 to 8, and a group of 9 to 11 years old.

		Mariaty teaches them many things, how to have clean body and clothes, teach them to read, write and count, and character building. A year later the children showed significant changes. The children are  now cleaner, healthier, have knowledge, able to read & write and do a simple math.i sekitanya.. Even the families are no longer live in nomadic lifestyle, thanks to the farming knowledge taught by Mariaty. The people can now take care of their farming and get settled in.
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>> Formal Education in Simbuang, Tana Toraja

Simbuang is inhabited by the native people of Toraja Tribe who still strongly hold to their ancestors’ belief called Alu Todolo. The Simbuang people earn their living by farming.
When Minggus and Nies first arrived, the children did not go to school. They said, “no teachers available”. So Minggus and Nies established a elementary school and become volunteer teachers who have been educating up to 72 children now.

 

Pioneering Middle and High Schools Time went by and the ministry had grown and started to show the fruits of their labor. After their success in establishing an elementary school, they didn’t stop there, they started a middle and high school. Thus, this activity of developing the Simbuang generation caught the local government’s attention. They then gave support by providing a place for the school.

There’s a new sight at Simbuang that had never been seen before..children in uniforms going to school!

 

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>> The first school in Kaili Da’a

Kaili Da’a, a UPG, dwells in the area of Central Sulawesi. They use the Kaili language with Da’a dialect. The people of Kaili Da’a had not attended school before.

 

Transportation to the village of the Kaili Da’a people is still quite hard. The access difficulty had made the Kaili Da’a people isolated from modern civilization. In this century of advanced technology, which grows so fast in Indonesian cities, the Kaily people had never adopt even one part of any advanced technology.

Unaware of Education
The children grow up with very minimum knowledge, thus the Kaili population is very poor. Their undeveloped state was very pitiful until we introduced them to education and technology.

The First School in Kaili
In mid June 2008, PESAT sent out two educators to develop a generation of Kaili Da’a tribe by establishing a emergency school for the children. By the end of August 2008, a prime school was established and the enthusiasm of the Kaili children was evident. They showed how much they enjoyed their time in “class” by folding their arms on the desks that were handmade by the teachers, and holding their pencils tightly on a piece of paper.
At first the school was held in Bantaya (the village’s traditional public hall). Now there are 50 children would line up neatly every morning with enthusiasm in front of their class at their ‘new school’. With walls and floors made of wood and sago leaves as the roof, the school building stood on a hill, slightly sideways, on level ground. It was a result of the villagers’ cooperative work.