Graduation 2016 at the Nursing School

On August 9th, the Nursing School held its 2016 graduation ceremony. 47 students graduated. 40 from this year and 7 from last year who had to make up some of their classes. As you can imagine graduation is a formal ceremony with lots of pomp and circumstance. It technically is convened as a Nursing School Senate meeting, or council meeting. Also those participate in the ceremony and graduating dress up a lot - so much so - I sometimes have a hard time recognizing them! The ladies spend hours in the morning doing their make-up and getting their hair done, usually with extra hair added to create quite the up-do. So here is the graduation in pictures...

It starts with a traditional Dyak tribal dance performed by younger students

We all stand for the entrance of the flags and the graduates

The Senate members enter and sit at the front

Dr. Kristiyan (Nursing School director and also our hospital's Ob/Gyn) opens the graduation ceremony

Three students representing the three religions of those in our graduating class go forward to take the nursing pledge. We usually have three of the six religions recognized in Indonesia represented in each class. They include Muslim, Protestant, and Catholic. 

The rest of the class also repeats the nursing pledge. 

Then short (we hope!) speeches are given by several government officials. This the Chairman that runs the Board responsible for the four ministries including Bethesda Hospital, Bethesda Nursing School, PKMD (Village Health Program), and MedGo 

The fifth and final speech is made by the Bupati, the man responsible for our Kabupaten (county). He is an elected official who is responsible for a large area and budget. 

Awards for the top three students in the class

The valedictorian, Eunice, gave a speech

Post ceremony comes picture time! This is one with all the graduates plus teachers and staff at the Nursing School. FYI Indonesian custom has you not smile during photos like this :) 

Several teachers and staff together after the ceremony. It is a chance to get dressed in your best :) 

After the ceremony and pictures, the invited guests and government officials eat together. This is separate from the graduates and the families.

I do wish the families were more involved in the ceremony. They have worked hard to get their student through the program and many have had to sacrifice a lot to pay for it. This year I attended as an invited guest, maybe next year I will be up for attending as one of the teachers/staff, which means leaving early in the morning and returning late in the afternoon. We are a small school, so they are in charge of set-up and take-down of everything and they all get dressed and do their make-up together. First though I will need to get a kebaya (the long tops the ladies are wearing) sewn. So that is something to look forward to next year. I should also thank my teammate for the majority of these pictures and the video. As an honored guest, he was sitting farther forward than I was, so was able to get a better view.

Next up for these 47 graduates will be a nursing board exam held sometime in September. To work in a hospital or with the government they must pass this test. The test is new in the last three years so still a work in progress and quite difficult to pass. Please be praying for them as they take their test and transition to the workforce or consider further education to get their bachelor's degree in nursing.

(This is one of those blog posts with a lot of pictures and a video. If you are reading this in your email chances are you will not be able to see everything, especially the video. If you click on the link to read the post on the blog itself, it will all be accessible)