Bandung Inclusive
English School

English opens doors.
These doors were closed.

English fluency opens doors — to employment, to further education, to international travel, to the kind of networks and opportunities that determine what a person can build in their lifetime. In Indonesia, as in most of the world, English education exists in abundance — if you can pay for it, if you can access the physical space, if the classroom was designed with you in mind. For people with disabilities, almost none of those conditions apply.

English language education in Indonesia — like most education systems globally — was not designed for disabled learners. Paraplegic students need accessible rooms. Blind students need adapted materials. Deaf students need adapted instruction. People of short stature need appropriately designed spaces. Most schools provide none of these things, and the result is a systematic exclusion of disabled Indonesians from one of the most economically consequential skills they could develop. Not by intent. By oversight. But the effect is the same.

Fred Gaghauna and Silent Voices changed that

Working together in Bandung, Fred Gaghauna and Silent Voices launched free, inclusive English classes specifically designed for people with disabilities. Paraplegic students. Blind students. Deaf students. People with short stature. All welcome. All taught. All taken seriously as learners with agency and ambition and the full capacity to acquire language if it is taught with care and adaptation.

Silent Voices volunteers taught both basic and intermediate English. The classes were not watered-down. They were not charity disguised as education. They were serious instruction, properly designed, delivered by people committed to the idea that disability does not diminish a person's ability or right to learn.

Language as a leveller

Every student who leaves the Bandung programme with stronger English has more options. More options mean more agency. More agency means more dignity. These are not separate things — they are the same thing, approached from different angles. The Bandung Inclusive English School is, at its core, a statement: that every person deserves access to the tools that give life more possibilities.