Following the visit of the panel of judges for Lomba Sekolah Sehat (LSS) Berkarakter 2019 (national competition for healthy schools) last August, on Thursday, October 8, 2019 Tzu Chi Early Childhood welcomed the panel of judges from the verification team, which marked the final evaluation stage for the competition. 

Based on the initial evaluation, Mr Abdul Rahman, the verification team leader, said that Tzu Chi Early Childhood School is now one step closer to become the winner in one of these three categories: Best Performance, Best Achievement, and Best Character. There will be 3 winners for each category, and Tzu Chi School is representing Jakarta province in competing with 8 other kindergartens from West Java, Central Java, East Java, Lampung, South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi.

However, Mr Rahman said that the main goal for this competition is not merely to win, “The goal is to raise the awareness of establishing a school with healthy environment as well as highlighting the importance of educating children for a healthy lifestyle, such as knowing when to wash their hands, to care for the environment and aware of the different types of waste. It will lead them to have a good character, and be happy in school.”

Recycling and protecting the environment has long been implemented as one of the important values of Tzu Chi, Master Cheng Yen said, “The goal of recycling waste is to encourage and teach everyone how to cherish blessings.” Hence, it has become the norm for Tzu Chi School to do so since its establishment in 2011.

Mr Ali Maulana, North Jakarta’s Deputy Mayor praised Tzu Chi School’s effort in establishing a healthy lifestyle, “I see that Tzu Chi School has the perseverance to establish a healthy school environment, and keep on innovating in its effort in recycling, so despite a number of students who have left and gone to primary, the quality of the school is maintained because the system is already there.”

After a walk around the school, Mr Rahman said that, “Tzu Chi School has fulfilled most of the criteria, it’s almost perfect. However, I haven’t seen how the other kindergartens like, so I guess we’ll have to wait for the result and invitation to the awarding ceremony later in the last week of October.”