A Story Returns Home through Illustrated Book Launch Across Three Communities in Indragiri Hilir

Indragiri Hilir, Riau, July 2026 – After launching its illustrated book in Jakarta among fellow organizations working on similar issues, Tay Juhana Foundation (TJF) has now brought the book back to where its story began. Between 22, 25, and 28 July 2026, TJF introduced and shared the illustrated book Serial dari Indragiri Hilir: Pak Kelapa dan Tanah Gambut with the three communities in Indragiri Hilir, Riau, a regency on Sumatra's eastern coast, that inspired it. The launch was carried out alongside Yayasan Bahtera Dwipa Abadi (YBDA), TJF's sister foundation and co-developer of the book, reaching education communities and children in Tanah Merah District, Pulau Burung District, and Kateman District through a series of interactive forums.

The first stop was Tanah Merah District, located along the southern coast of Kabupaten Indragiri Hilir, on Wednesday, 22 July 2026. The session opened with presentations from two speakers, followed by a short talk show and an open discussion with all participants. Atin Sanita, Vice Coordinator for School Management at YBDA, spoke on contextual learning, while Dinda Sonaloka, Assistant Manager at TJF, shared the background behind the book's development.

With representatives from schools, other learning communities, and local officials in attendance, the event received a warm response, helped along by how open TJF and YBDA were to participants' input. Participants praised the book as a tool that supports contextual learning, bridging local context with research findings so that the knowledge feels close and accessible to children, the next generation of the coconut ecosystem.

To the north of the regency, the second stop took the launch to Pulau Burung District, folded into YBDA's Pompong Pintar program that already runs nearly every week. On Saturday, 25 July 2026, the team from both organizations traveled to Kawasan Kebun Induk I by pompong (the local term for a kind of wooden boat) and spent the day with around 30 children from the area. The session combined a book distribution, a group reading, and a puppet show as its closing activity.

Through this activity, both organizations saw firsthand how children responded to a story set in a landscape they recognized as their own. That recognition showed clearly in how excited they got seeing the book's characters riding bicycles among the coconut trees. Making puppets for the show also drew strong interest and letting the children draw the characters themselves gave them room to shape their own understanding of the story.

Still in the northern part of the regency and not far from the second location, the final stop brought TJF and YBDA to Desa Air Tawar, Kateman District, at the public facility Taman Hijau. Held on Tuesday, 28 July 2026, the event paired the same interactive discussion format used in Tanah Merah for adult guests with a parallel reading group for children. As with the two earlier events, the response was warm. TJF and YBDA came away with plenty of input and support for the book's next steps, from new themes worth exploring to how the book is packaged, further collaboration and follow-up, and wider distribution.

By bringing the book back to the places that inspired it, TJF and YBDA have opened a new path forward. TJF, as a research institution, and YBDA, as a community empowerment organization, can keep strengthening resilience support for local communities in Indragiri Hilir, Riau. Beyond sharing research findings with a broader audience, the book is also meant to build readers' reasoning skills, helping them not only understand the specific context within its pages but also adapt to today's increasingly uncertain climate.

Read more about the illustrated book Serial dari Indragiri Hilir: Pak Kelapa dan Tanah Gambut through this link, and stay tuned for more coverage of these three events on Tay Juhana Foundation's YouTube channel. Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn to keep up with how we're thinking about environmental adaptation and food resilience in Indragiri Hilir, Riau.