A month before I left for the UK, my friend, Bentley, invited me to participate in a workshop that he arranged for Forum Film Anak (Children’s Film Forum, FFA). FFA is a community group that Bentley and his friend co-founded to educate media literacy for children using children’s film.
The Workshop
The First-Half: Stepping on The Flying Grass
In the workshop, FFA screened Cita-Citaku Setinggi Tanah (Stepping on the Flying Grass, 2012), which then followed by an activity related to the theme of the film.
Cita-Citaku Setinggi Tanah revolves around a village boy named Agus, in his journey to write an essay about his dream for a school assignment. Living in a family without many options of foods, he dreams nothing more than eating in Padang restaurant in the city. When he finds an opportunity to raise money, he starts to make his dream come true.
After the screening, Bentley, who happened to be the MC of the event as well, asked the participants (not many of us actually, maybe around 10 people) to gather in a circle. I could see the participants were a bit diverse in terms of age—I think most of us were in their twenties, some were in the early thirty, and few of them were still 10, 13.
Once we gathered, we introduced ourselves and then Bentley’s crew gave each of us a pen and a sticky note. He asked us to draw something that we remembered the most from the film.
I drew Agus’s hat, which he made out of newpapers but chose not to wear in the end. For me, it represents a dream in our lives that didn’t come true— It’s okay to give up on something to take it as a life lesson, and move on to something else and start over.
Others draw river—the place where Agus and his friends usually gather after school to play and talk about their dreams, some draw bicycle, and even chicken. Many interesting memories!
The Second Half: What about Your Dream?
After we finished presenting our drawing, Bentley divided us into groups of two. I was paired up with a 14year old boy. Not that I didn’t like it but he seemed very…quiet and shy. But I was happy then because he guessed that I was 18 years old (lol).
The next activity revolved around talking about our dreams in pairs, which we continue by drawing that dream on a bigger paper. However, the drawing is not about our dream; it was about our partner’s, to give them support and wish them all the best for their dreams.
I remembered my partner, he wanted to be a soldier. When I asked him why, his answer was very honest. No, it wasn’t because he thought soldier was cool in uniform or looked strong. It was because he liked to play Counter Strike—that fighting game on computer. And I think he also explained that he liked the weapons he used in the game that he wanted to see it in real life. When I asked him whether he had plans about how he could achieve it, he was still clueless.
Now when he asked me what my dream was, I got confused a little to answer. At this age, I got lost of what I could describe as a dream. I have many dreams. I don’t know which one to choose—more likely, I don’t know how to explain it to a 14-year-old boy.
I wanted to explain about teaching media education in Indonesia, without explaining what media education is to him. So, I told him that I wanted to teach something that hadn’t been thought yet in Indonesian schools… and I could see a confused face on him.
I felt bad about him lol. So, I said simply, “I wanna be a teacher!”
Afterwards, we started to draw for each other. I draw him in a soldier uniform, while he draw me teaching in a class. At the end of the workshop, we took pictures and hung our drawings on the board next to the theatre room.
This is Not the End: A New Dream
We had socials afterwards, when I met Bentley and his other colleagues from other NGOs which also concerning about film and education. Bentley explained to me about FFA. He started FFA a couple years ago, on the basis of very little children’s film in indonesia. He told me that he wanted to celebrate more children’s films and make children watch more films appropriate for their age. Beyond that, he wished that through FFA, children could also be media literate since little.
I met Bentley last year on a media literacy event and he remembered that I would be studying media education for masters, thus inviting me to his workshop event before I leave. He also mentioned some other FFA events that he did in the past, and he asked me to collaborate with him in developing media education activities for children in FFA after I came back from studying.
That is the most encouraging thing to say from a friend that I seldom meet, honestly (I only met Bentley once a year). It feels good to meet people with the same vision as you and actually have plans to do something for it. Now I’m excited to go back home and start applying what I have learned about media education.
I know I sound very very cliché, but I want to have a hope and make little steps like Agus, no matter how small your dream is. And like John Lennon said,
Image source: https://zff.com/en/archive/7120/ (header)
Not a food blog 
After reading your blog, I believe we have common interests and similar dreams. I may understand the meaning and mood of what you said to that boy, ‘I wanted to teach something that had n’t been thought yet in Indonesian schools…’. We all want to devote ourselves to the development of media education, come on!
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