During the “A Dollar for Scholars” fundraising drive, every guest who stayed at Hotel Gran Meliá Jakarta had the option to contribute one dollar for education in Indonesia. This contribution could be made directly at the reception desk or added to the final hotel billing automatically. This “A Dollar for Scholars” program also gained the support of noted Indonesian painter, Suprobo, who held a painting exhibition at the launching of the program in August last year.  Suprobo donated a part of the proceeds from that exhibition to the “A Dollar for Scholars” program.

Manuel Locher expressed his appreciation for the concern that Hotel Gran Melia’s guests exhibited toward education in Indonesia. ”We are proud that we could facilitate our hotel guest’s efforts to participate in education in Indonesia. And  we are especially pleased that through our cooperation with SF, we can provider reports to our guests about the development of the 22 children we are all assisting,” Manuel said.

Sapto Handoyo Sakti, Director of Communication for Sampoerna Foundation responded to Manuel’s remarks, saying, ”People frequently want to do something for education in Indonesia, but simply do not know how or don’t have enough confidence about how their donations might be channeled. With this ’A Dollar for Scholars’ program, we have made an effort to make it easier for hotel guests who want to participate in easing access for Indonesian children to education.”

”We will continue to provide periodic reports to the Gran Melia to convey to their hotel guests. Hopefully, in this way. More and more people will become concerned with improving access to education for Indonesian children,” Sapto said on the sidelines of the scholarship presentation ceremony.

Based on Department of National Education data, in 2005-2006 as many as 34,909,048 of a total of 84,353,000 young people aged between 5 to 24 years could not participate in the complete educational process, with the drop-out rate reaching more than 1 million per year. In other words, almost 50% of Indonesia’s children cannot go to school and those who are in school run the risk of having to drop out due to lack of funds.