Brigita's Here!

United States of America is always full of surprises—for me! Well it is my very first time going to the U.S and I enjoy it so far. As Indonesian, which have a huge different with this country I love to explore anything here. And today my YSEALI Fellow and I had a great chance to live with American family till next two days. Ruzzel—from Philippines and I lived in David Cole and Linda Handerson’s house. They have two kids, a daughter and son, Kristin and Dylan. But both live outside Missoula. The Cole-Handerson family live an active lifestyle and they enjoy outdoor activities very much. They love to explore wildlife in or out Missoula. Linda is retired nurse and David is a retired wilderness reserah scientist. Both are so amazing. In the morning, just with Linda—because David just want to enjoyed his lazy Saturday—we went to Farmer’s Market in North Downtown Missoula. We had been here before, but we want to repeated it. Previously we had a breakfast in Veera Donuts. In Farmer’s Mar...

One of aour activities today was went to Missoula Food Bank and Community Center. They are a community who concern on how to end hunger in our community through activism and volunteerism. The provide health food and logistic for people who need it.  They have store which provide logistics for community. People can come twice a month. On first coming, people can bring any logistic they needs based on their household number and condition. On second coming, they only permit take some logistic.  Beside provide free food and logistic, Missoula Food Bank also concern on community activities. The have Kids Empower program, Kids Table Summer, Learning Kitchen, Roots program, Kids Table After-School, Food Circle and Grocery Rescue, and also Advocacy and Lived Experienced. They love to work with volunteer and give a huge oppotunity to anyone can join their activities.  We met Ashley, she expalined many things about MFB and gave us chance to do some voluenteer activity....

Today I learned about youth engagement and group project collaborate.  Class started at 09.00 in Forward Montana, Missoula. Actually, Forward Montana is a community which not only concern in resources but also organization training and mobilizing young people.  There was Erin Miller, the Field Manager of FM, explained alot things about how Forward Montana engaging youth.   First session, we discussed about the common assumption about youth to bring and make-up our mind. This session was bridging an intoroduction about 'What Forward Montana Do'. Erin explained. Briefly, Forward Montana has 4 focusses work, among others, quantitative, qualitative, citizenship, humor and fun, the last but not least, leadership development.  Recently, their focus in on how to engage young people to vote. They have 'Knock-out Campaign' as a one tool to reach goal. This campaign mechanism quite simple yet challenging. The campaigner must knock stranger's house, build a co...

Herewith,  I don't want to tell a story about how was my day. Nope.  I wanna tell you about everyone who with me now in this awesome program.  As an opener. Let me introduce you... Heidi Blair . She is our program manager. She overseeing daily management and implementation of the program.  Kayla Sheridan and Kyra Cronin . She is a program coordinator at the Mansfield Center. She helps Heidi manage this program. In this program we asist directly by Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA). They are Zach Goodwin, Nicholas Maya, Alex Ocanas, and Quinn Huisman. The last but not least, Dr. Nicky Phear . She is our academic director. She was founding director of University of Montana's Climate Change Studies Program. As YSEALI academic director she has had the privilage of mentoring  emerging leaders in developing collaborative that address shared environmental challenges across Souteast Asia. Ah the last one, Deena Mansour . She is the Administrative Director of...

It's been along time. . Terakhir menulis di sini kira-kira 4 bulan yang lalu. WAAAH. Sudah banyak debu dan sarang laba-laba nih! HAHA.  Sesuai judulnya, sekarang saya sedang berada di Missoula City yang terletak di Montana, U.S.A. Pernah mimpi untuk datang ke sini, untuk belajar dan Puji Tuhan.. Tahun ini dapat kesempatan luar biasa injak tanah asalnya McDonalds. Sebenarnya sudah dari beberapa hari yang lalu tiba di sini. Tapi baru hari ini punya mood untuk buka notebook, ke web browser dan menuju blogger.com untuk mulai menulis sesuatu.  Anyway, perjalanan ke Amerika ini sepenuhnya dibiayai oleh Pemerintah Amerika Serikat. Makasiiii banyak ooo kaka . Begitu orang Kupang bilang. Karena memang setiap yang kita lakukan dari pembuatan  visa keberangkatan hingga tiba di tanah kampuang masing-masing dibiayai sepenuhnya oleh mereka. Makasiiiii lagi oooo. Saya akan berada kurang lebih selama 5 minggu di University of Montana bersama 20 teman lainnya dari 10 negara...