ABOUT
Overview
GEKKO is a youth movement collaborating with GK Indonesia foundation to help empower impoverished communities so that they become sustainable.
GEKKO’s first initiative in 2020 helped a GK community to earn additional income and to create awareness about the Covid pandemic with families in the community designing and producing face masks and t shirts which GEKKO then sold to families and friends.
With students having to shift to online schooling but lacking access to wifi connection, GEKKO raised funds to build wifi learning centers in the communities.
These learning centers are continuously being built-17 learning centers in several GK communities have been built so far-and are being upgraded so that they serve the learning and training needs not only of children and youth but adults too.
The latest GEKKO projects are sustainable farming, micro enterprise for women, youth development program and facilities, bridging the digital divide, upskilling the women for better employment opportunities.
History
GEKKO Indonesia was established in early 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. At its establishment, GEKKO Indonesia’s goal, and still is, - was to teach the less fortunate how to fish and not simply give them fish; to help them become autonomous and self-sustaining.
The idea of teaching people the skills necessary to pursue success rather than having them rely on the goodwill of others is something that is central to the GK Indonesia philosophy to which GEKKO adheres to.
GEKKO Indonesia is built on the same idea, which is seen in that it:
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Gives adults jobs while jobs are still challenging to come across
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Acts as a source of income
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Provides an opportunity to learn skills that can open up work opportunities in the future
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Contributes directly to the construction of more learning centers, allowing GK children to further their education
Today, with the world opening up, GEKKO Indonesia has evolved to become more integrated in its approach of helping address poverty and other global issues that affect impoverished communities. While shirt production remains its bread and butter funding mechanism for its projects, GEKKO’s projects itself focused on sustainability, circular economy, climate change, women empowerment, youth development, and digitalization/digital divide.
ABOUT GEKKO INDONESIA
How did GEKKO Indonesia start?
GEKKO Indonesia begun with the GK Mask Initiative in the early summer of 2020 as a short-term solution to the economic strain caused by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Started by a teacher at Jakarta Intercultural School named Richard Miller and a handful of Middle Schoolers, the GK Mask Initiative served both as a way for these families to earn a living and as a way for them to be part of the solution in combating COVID-19 in Indonesia. Over the course of the summer, 4 sewing machines were donated to help boost the production of masks. With the help of a few Middle School volunteers, the GK Mask Initiative sold over 4300 masks.
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The project then developed into the GK Shirt Initiative. The GK Shirt Initiative managed to develop designs and make use of screen printing machines, bought with the profits from the GK Mask Initiative, to sell over 450 shirts and raise over Rp. 66,000,000.
With the money earned from both the GK Shirt and Mask Initiatives, GK was able to complete the construction of 8 learning centers, each of which comes with interactive television and free WiFi to allow the GK-sponsored children to participate in online learning, which was the norm for the 2020 to 2021 school year.