Investing in goodwill Students arriving Sydney, December 1963 Vice President of Indonesia 2009-2014, Boediono Indonesian students performing, UWA, Indonesian independence day celebrations, August 1964 Engaging our region •  Overseas Development Aid and Scholarships and Fellowships •  Mutually beneficial aid •  Alumni as key public diplomacy resource A long view of Australia’s Indonesian alumni 18,000 Indonesian alumni Brief historical background: Aus-Indo scholarships •  Pre-dates Colombo Plan •  Goodwill Mission, 1948 •  Colombo Plan meeting of Foreign Ministers, 1950 •  First Indonesian student to Australia, 1951 •  1,000th Colombo Plan student, 1955 •  15 nations sponsored, 1951-1986 •  Indonesia second largest cohort Colombo Plan, 1951-1986 Year 1950-‐51 1951-‐52 1952-‐53 1953-‐54 1954-‐55 1955-‐56 1956-‐57 1957-‐58 1958-‐59 1959-‐60 1960-‐61 1961-‐62 1962-‐63 1963-‐64 Total Indonesians 7 34 17 31 84 220 98 14 38 32 83 95 92 98 943 Total student arrivals 49 174 174 140 382 675 439 249 360 430 470 560 564 573 5239 Colombo Plan 1950/51 – 1964: Indonesian arrivals each year Source: Current Notes, Department of External Aﬀairs. 1950-1964. Soeparman (centre), the 1000th scholarship awardee, and fellow Indonesian Colombo Plan students on a national tour, 1956 5 Linking ‘Government to Government’ Post-tsumani aid package plus education Life histories approach: change and continuity •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  Backgrounds of sponsored students Application (motivation) and approval processes Pre-departure activities and students’ expectations Assistance in-country and stipend support Relations with staﬀ and students on campuses Academic training and intellectual influences Living arrangements, forming friendships Role of family and multi-generational experiences Transition back to Indonesia Recognition, status and mobility post-scholarship Ongoing connections with Australia Backgrounds of awardees Kos A, 1955 My father and mother lived oﬀ the land. We had our own land inherited from grandparents. Rice field and dry field. I loved it when I was a boy. e highlight of my life are busy so the children were free to play. We wo until even today. During the harvest the parents would use the cut straw to build little huts. My mother was illiterate but very clever. Her father did not allow her to go to school although her brothers were educated and became teachers. My father went to school for only three years. We never had newspapers or anything like that. But my mother said ‘go to school so you can become a clerk in the railway like your cousin, not work in the fields like us’. Backgrounds of awardees Andi A, 2004 I was born in Bali in a village in Tabanan…in a very simple family because my Mum and Dad didn’t have much schooling. My Mum only went to Primary School and my Dad not even that much….When I was a kid my parents were stonemasons. ey would dig in the mine and extract the stone and then shape it…very physical and hard work. I still remember back in the 1980s when I was 3, 4, 5 years old, my Mum and Dad would wake up at 4am and go to the mining site. ey took me because we didn’t have a maid. I remember my Mum carrying me, walking in the dark through the rice fields. We understood that education was not something that we have in the family so my siblings and I really pursued it. First contact, making friends, networks Houw T, 1955 I lived with the Hunts until the end of first year. I became friends with the Hoveys who lived next door. Jack Hovey was a wharfie and his wife, Jean, was very nice. ey had a few sons, and a daughter. Mr Hunt was a minister in Yarraville but then he decided to become a school chaplain and that involved him moving from Yarraville to Ivanhoe. I’m not sure exactly which school it was, one of the big schools. So he moved to Ivanhoe and that’s when we parted ways but I kept in touch with the Hoveys for quite a few years. Nabila N, 2006 Colleagues who were there, and my relative who was still there were really helpful sharing experience of living in Canberra….I really had a picture…For people like me with a newly born baby and limited experience abroad I feel this information is more important than academic things… 12 Multi-generational family diplomacy Anna T, 2004 After studying there for 4 years the experience is priceless for me and my boys especially. It really changed their way of thinking and they became creative and independent and good at sport…e three of them have Aussie accents. Friendships Sinta, 2006 Pane, 1957 When I lived in Australia I really steeled my nerve to live with Australians…I saw most of my friends in Melbourne where we have many Indonesian friends, they did not improve in their English at all. I have to gain something apart from my academic degree, at least the language… I really want to know the lifestyle, I really want to be involved in their life. I really want to know what kind of food they eat, how they do the laundry, its so diﬀerent. I want to wear what they wear, I want to eat what they eat, I want to do their shopping. e only way I can do that is to live with Australians… At International House we could dance, every week practically, so we’d find girls so we had a partner. International House is very close to the women's college, Janet Clarke Hall, so we looked for girls there. One of my friends had a girlfriend and I met Margaret through his girlfriend. Margaret was doing nursing at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, at that time, so it was very close.