Dear Ms Gabriela Perez Baez,

My name is Subur Laksmono Wardoyo, a lecturer at the Undergraduate and Graduate

programs at the Semarang PGRI University. I obtained my Sarjana Degree from IKIP Negeri
Semarang, my MA In British and American Literature from New York University, and my Ph.D
in American Literature from New York University. I teach Introduction to Literature, Semiotics,
Advanced Study of English Literature, and Philosophy of Education. My areas of research are in
English language and literature education. I have published more than a dozen articles, three of
which have appeared in Parole, Celt journals. My present book that is published by Kanisius is
Menelusuri Jejak Capra: Menemukan Integrasi Sains, Filsafat, Agama (Tracing Capra:

Discovering the Integration of Science, Philosophy, and Religion. And I am the Principal
Investigator preparing a pre-proposal for USAIDs PEER program together with my research
team.
We got your name from the website of PEER: Find a USG Supported
Partner

from

USAIDs

PEER

Team.

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/PEER/PGA_147201
We are interested in you as our potential partner of research
because we find that your area of study has the corellation with our
research for the PEER program in which we choose Education as our area
of research which is one of the three priority areas provided by USAIDs
PEER program and which has the Focus Area Indonesia/Multiple Research
Fields
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/PEER/PGA_152148
The proposal we are preparing for USAIDs PEER Program is in the
Focus Area of Education. Our project name is Bilingual Learning model by
using Local Wisdom resources as the media of stimulating aspects of early
childhood development as a method of maintaining local cultures.
The first poject aim is to give training or teaching practice to the
teachers in Early Childhood Education especially those located in the rural
areas about the teaching methods and techniques which have a lack of
media facilities and so we propose using teaching media taken from the
local wisdom resources such as traditional games, natural resources,
traditional foods. The teaching will be conveyed billingually, that is, in
Indonesian and in English. The traditional games that are famous but
almost disappearing are sudah mandah, dakon, bentik, sprintel,

undur-undur, etc. The Natual resources that are going to be used are
natural stones, seashells, white sands, the leaves of plants, fruits,
vegetables to teach how to count numbers, how to identify colours, how to
spell words, etc. The traditional foods in Central Java Indonesia are aremarem, nogo sari, klepon, etc that can be used as to teach the students
how to count numbers, how to identify colours, how to differentiate taste,
and how to express like and dislike. The second project aim is to preserve
the local wisdom resources to the young generation through education so
that they will love the local products of their own culture.
PEER is seeking research projects that support the goals and
objectives of USAID/Indonesia as outlined in the Missions Country
Development
Cooperation
Strategy
(CDCS; http://www.usaid.gov/indonesia/cdcs). Principal investigators have
the opportunity to apply for PEER funds if their research supports one of
the
following
three
priority
areas
forUSAID/Indonesia:

Climate change: PEER will support research projects with a focus

on policy-relevant science and climate adaptation in urban, rural,
biophysical, and natural sectors; climate adaptation policies and/or
social impacts of climate change adaptation; and greenhouse gas
emissions reduction from the land use sector, including
deforestation, agriculture, and development.

Education: PEER will support research projects with a particular

focus on strengthening teaching methods and curricula in statistics,
the scientific method, research methods, generation of knowledge,
methods of inquiry, and evidence-based decision making. Education
proposals that involve the application of the scientific method to
non-research focused contexts and evidence-based decision making
are also encouraged.

Wildlife trafficking: PEER will support research projects with a

focus on understanding the dynamics of wildlife trafficking in
Indonesia and policy relevant science related to the prevention of
wildlife trafficking, including the drivers of trafficking, policies or
legal framework around trafficking, population distributions of
affected species, ecosystem services linked to trafficked species, the
economics of trafficking, law enforcement for trafficking, traceability
for trafficked species, and other relevant issues.
From the three priority areas, we choose Education as our area of
reseach. Through these partnerships, we do hope to get the chance of

having the benefit of your skills, laboratory access, other resources,

expertise, and partnership in a truly collaborative research.
It is the first time for us to join USAIDs PEER program and we got
the information about it from the Embassy of the United States, Jakarta,
Indonesia, IndonesiaAlumni@state.gov.
The Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER)
program is a competitive awards program, supported by the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the
U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS),
that invite scientists in developing countries to apply for funds to support
research and capacity building activities on topics of importance to USAID
and conducted in partnership with the U.S. Government (USG)supported
and selected private sector partners. The PEER program is meant to
leverage investments by other USG agencies and the private sector in
scientific research and training in order to enhance the development
priorities of USAID.
And it is the requirement from USAIDs PEER program for us to get a
letter of support written by the USGsupported partner explaining his or
her intention to collaborate on the proposed PEER project. The letter
should also include the partners USG funded grant title, number, funding
agency, name of program officer and contact information for his or her
active USG award. The letter must be written on official institutional
letterhead and must be signed by the USG-supported partner.
We believe that your work will give great contribution to our PEER
proposal as we will need more insight, skills, resources about how to
implement active learning pedagogies in our project so that we can give
better implementation of giving the model of teaching very young
learners by using media taken from local wisdom resources. We also need
details of knowledge and information about how student-centered
teaching methods demonstrated to positively impact students most
through the activities of local wisdom preservation in the classroom
practice since we will use local wisdom as the teaching media that is user
friendly to both the environment and children. We do hope that our
current and/or future work could potentially benefit your area of study as
the findings of this research will redound to the benefit of society
considering that the preservation of local wisdom plays an important role
in maintaining the young generationss love of their own culture today and
it can be done through education.
We hope much that you will give us the opportunity to have a truly
collaborative research with you and later on if our PEER proposal is
already awarded we would like to discuss collaborations further.

Our contact information is yiyien.averros@gmail.com with the mobile

phone number +628179571200 .
We are looking forward to your reply and we do hope you will give
us a letter of support explaining your intention to collaborate on our
proposed PEER project and we expect that the letter will include your USG
funded grant title, number, funding agency, name of program officer and
contact information for your active USG award. And it is required by
USAIDs PEER Program that the letter must be written on official
institutional letterhead and must be signed by you as our USG Supported
partner.

Best Regards,
Subur Laksmono Wardoyo, Ph.D.
(Principal Investigator of the project)