SEPTEMBER 2025 – This year, Taman Bacaan Pelangi once again collaborates with Pitulung Ministry to run the Girl Empowerment program, targeting female students in three partner schools: SMPN 33 Buton, SMPN 7 Kalukku, and SMPN 7 Bambangan. The participants will learn about topics that focus on personal capacity building, such as public communication, financial literacy, environment, reproductive health, and more. In its second year, the Girl Empowerment program will run from September 2025 to September 2026, with participants attending monthly classes both online and offline, guided by two facilitators at each school.

Training of Trainers (ToT) for the local facilitators

To kick off the Girl Empowerment program, six selected facilitators—teachers from the three partner schools—took part in a five-day intensive training from September 1–5, 2025. In this training, the teacher-facilitators were prepared to act as mentors as well as instructors for the monthly in-person sessions at their respective schools. After the training, the facilitators prepared the first class, which was held in September and directly facilitated by Kak Ezer from Pitulung Ministry.

The first class session in SMPN 7 Kalukku

On September 16, 2025, eleven female students from SMPN 7 Kalukku, Mamuju District, attended the first Girl Empowerment class. The event was officially opened by the school principal, Mr. Icuk Sugiarto, who expressed his gratitude that the program was being implemented at their school for the second time. The session was then led by Kak Ezer, assisted by the teacher-facilitator, Mrs. Fatiah.


The first session covered Public Speaking, where participants took turns introducing themselves and sharing their aspirations in English. The second session was about Environmental Knowledge. In this session, students were presented with an environmental issue from their local area. They were then divided into three main groups, each acting as the Community Team, the Government Office Team, and the District Head Team. During the large group discussion, each team had the chance to present their findings in the form of proposals, programs, activity plans, and so on. The first Girl Empowerment activity at SMPN 7 Kalukku went well, with all participants enthusiastically engaged in every session. One participant, Jandri Bunga Malilu, said she was very happy to practice speaking in public without fear. She was also pleased to see her friends confidently sharing their opinions during the Forum Group Discussion.

The first class session in SMPN 7 Bambangan

The same enthusiasm was also seen at SMPN 7 Bambangan, Majene District, West Sulawesi. On September 17, 2025, the Girl Empowerment class began with eighteen female students actively joining each session. Two teacher-facilitators from this school, Mrs. Warnida and Mrs. Nur Reski, accompanied the sessions. In this first class, Kak Ezer encouraged the participants to practice observing themselves and their surroundings with guiding questions: What do I see? What do I think? What do I want to ask? This became the highlight of the session at SMPN 7 Bambangan, followed by student presentations of their observations.

The Girl Empowerment activities held at the two schools in West Sulawesi with Kak Ezer from Pitulung Ministry will serve as a model for future sessions, which will be facilitated directly by the selected teacher-facilitators at each school. In this first meeting, besides the students, the teacher-facilitators also had the opportunity to receive direct coaching from Kak Ezer as a follow-up to the virtual training conducted earlier in September.