Kategori: CITY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

The Career Development Division of PPI London is in charge of handling events and providing resources to Indonesian students in London surrounding their career, regarding topics such as career opportunities, career paths, advice from alumni, networking with professionals, and many more. The ultimate goal is to provide guidance and information to students so that they can start or further their careers with confidence, be it in London or elsewhere.

Finding a job after graduating university has always been a main concern for students, and the Covid-19 pandemic has only further exacerbated this concern as employment grows more competitive with companies cutting down on hiring new employees. By joining this division, one has the chance to take part in alleviating these concerns for fellow students and bridging the information gap for them.

In our most recent webinar last December for example, we held a career talk that broadly covered 3 different career paths/industries namely entrepreneurship, finance industry and the tech industry. During which, we were able to answer questions asked by attendees regarding their concerns about working in the UK as a minority, but also addressing more personal issues in deciding one’s career path. This demonstrated the type of problems that we are able to address and help people with which is incredibly rewarding especially knowing ourselves the difficulties of being a student and starting a career in London.

As a part of the Indonesian student community where we roam to London for knowledge, we would like to give back something to our country. Not only knowledge but also sharing our compassion and love. This year, the Community Service team has the vision to support Indonesian children’s education through books, donation, and sponsorship. We also concern about people back home who are suffering from the current COVID-19 pandemic and would like to lend a hand to support them getting through this difficult time. We always believe, our act of love can be shown in many ways and small action can make a big impact. 

Our focus is to help Indonesian citizen back at home, therefore, our community is the most welcome for any students in London who want to serve the same purpose as we do and influence people to share kindness and love to everyone in need. We thank our country’s effort to fulfil our education needs up to this day, and now as we get older, it’s time for us to express our gratitude to our country. One of the very first projects that we have is supporting Indonesian canteen vendors who suffer from school closure due to the COVID-19 outbreak by purchasing their goods and deliver them to Indonesian orphanages in need. We also at the agreement process with an NGO to help us deliver our act of love in financially support Indonesian kids’ education needs.

So in general, we provide assistance and information for Indonesian students in London. This includes giving pre departure training for new students and sharing information about life in London.

We provide advice and support on a range of issues for students, helping them to get the most of their time in London. One of our services includes airport pickup for new students. We want to make them feel safe and welcomed during their study time in London. Moreover, as mentioned before, we also provide pre departure training for the new students. This is useful for the students to gain knowledge about life in London before starting their studies. By doing these services, we hope to raise students’ awareness about sharing and togetherness.

Our division’s main goal is to help Indonesian students build connection with their fellow Indonesian peers. We are known for making very interactive social events where we include various forms of entertainment, whether it be games or music, to break the ice. Unfortunately, due to the current pandemic, we are unable to hold physical events the way we used to. However, this did not stop us from achieving our goal this academic year. We strive to give the same experience to our Indonesian friends virtually, regardless of where they are at the moment.  

With the current global situation in mind, we have conducted two virtual events that have hopefully been beneficial for our Indonesian friends. 

Our first event was the Instagram Live session we held with El Rumi, where we talked about “Life in London As a Student During COVID-19”.This event was aimed for students who were planning to leave for London to start or continue their study. Our purpose for this event was to give these students an insight of the current situation in London and how they can go about their day when they get to London. We had over 500 people streaming our Instagram Live, with plenty of questions for El and myself to discuss and answer. We have received great feedback from various sources, and we are glad this session has been informative to our audience. 

The second event we held this year was a collaboration with the Career Development division for a webinar regarding Careers in the UK. The theme of the webinar was “From being your own boss to breaking into the private sector!”. We wanted to invite speakers from a broad range of backgrounds to give students different perspectives of working in the UK. Eventually, we were grateful to have had three amazing panelists for this webinar. We had Rania Rusly, Pino Edwards from Pino’s Warung, and Christy Zakarias from YIPA UK. This webinar was attended by over 100 participants, and they all had very insightful questions to ask. 

We have more virtual events coming up soon, but we hope as things get better we can plan a physical event in the near future. Our current priority is for everyone to stay safe and healthy, and the best way to do that is by following the UK government’s health regulations. 

The Sports and Art Division of PPI London is the organising body which is responsible in providing the mediums for students in London to channel their passion in sports and arts. We organised different activites: from weekly sporting events to a nation-wide sports and art tournament. Aside from the existing communities of Football, Badminton and Basketball, this year, the division also initiated 3 new communities: Women’s sports, Running & Cycling and music clubs.

This division greatly promotes the wellbeing of students in London through the sports activities. Also, by initiating different communities, we created mediums for students not just to channel their hobbies and passion but also to create networking opportunities. As a result, the communities are becoming more and more independent. With 200+ members, the communities are very strongly bounded. Keeping in mind that students in London are located very far from each other, the weekly activities allow students with mutual enthusiasm to gather at one place and mingle.

Every year, with new members coming, the activities offered by the division also diversify. For instance, this year, a lot of the new members are enthusiasts in cycling & running. Hence, they initiated ILWCC, a club dedicated for running and cycling enthusiasts in London. This club held its first running event after the lockdown in London, encouraging Indonesian students in London to work out and improve their lifestyle. Still with safety protocols considered, the event also provided entertainment in the uncertain circumstances.

This division is also responsible in organising Piala Indonesia, a UK-wide sports tournament. Every year, we invited other PPI within UK to come to London and compete. As years go by, this event is transforming to be one of the biggest and most awaited events for Indonesian communities in the UK. This is an opportunity to solidify the Indonesian communities in the UK, allowing new connections to grow whilst also promoting Indonesian cultures, especially through cuisines.

Creative Media provides designs for posters, merchandise, logo etc. To make PPI London IG page more interesting to look at for future students / even students in London. But overall we (Creative Media Team) are here to help with all of the divisions, to learn and to grow together as a team. For example, we received a request to make the designs for charity. We sell t-shirts, sweatshirts and tote bags. The designs that my team and I made consisted of motivational quotes and some illustrations about charity. Every person who buys the merchandise contribute to charity as all profits will automatically be donated to charity and I think what we do is helping the community.

The benefits of joining PPI London is you’ll get new knowledge and experience to work with other people or work as a team making it a very educational experience. This is seen as our members are quite competent where the basics skills that are needed for this division are Photoshop, Indesign or Illustrator.