Indonesian students celebrate life in Auckland

Students from Indonesia have shared how they are gaining valuable life lessons while living in Auckland.

Four students were invited to speak by Indonesian artists Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina, who led a Fellowship Forum at AUT’s St Paul St Gallery looking at the effects of globalisation and national identity.

The students were representatives of Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia Auckland, also known as the Auckland Indonesian Student Association, and are completing various degrees at AUT University.

One of the four, Wayan Linggawa, said the move to Auckland has been interesting.

“We had never thought about some of these things until we got here.”

The students dubbed their presentation ‘Triactus Scolasticus’ which is an amalgamation of the words “three”, “actions”, “students” and “us”, and is derived from Sanskrit and Latin languages.

The group shared how the City of Sails had taught them that everyone is capable of greatness.

Another student, Zita Sari, said she used to strictly “look at Westerners as examples of success,” but when she came here, she saw “all kinds of people succeeding”.

The group also celebrated the diversity they had witnessed in Auckland and noticed everyone doing their part in society.

“We see great things are determined by small actions,” said group member Jannata Giwangkara.

The group aims to promote all of their discoveries at upcoming “playshops”, to be announced at a later date.

Mr Linggawa said “a playshop is like a work shop, but we’ll play as well as work”.

The playshop will involve making a “pho-saic”, where pieces of a single image will be distributed beforehand to different people’s phones, and will require the participants to work together to form the image.