Bekasi child scavengers get new school at garbage dump<\/p>\n
By Juliane Gunardono<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Yan no longer bothers to shoo away the millions
\nof flies which, like him, live off the endless heaps of municipal
\ngarbage in Bantar Gebang, in Bekasi, east of Jakarta.<\/p>\n
He has lived here for five of the 10 years of his life, and he
\nis used to spending his days in the middle of dirty plastic bags,
\nused tissues, empty bottles, toilet paper and all the other
\nthings people from Jakarta, Bogor and Tangerang throw away.<\/p>\n
About five hours a day he works as a scavenger on the 136-
\nhectare dump site, like 500 or so other children living in Bantar
\nGebang, searching for anything which can be cleaned up and sold.<\/p>\n
\"The garbage is our living,\" he says. \"And it is our
\nplayground, too.\"<\/p>\n
Yan earns about 20 percent of the family income, which is
\nabout Rp 8,000 (less than US$1) a day. On lucky days, he is able
\nto bring home leftovers from somebody's table to share with his
\nfamily; vegetables, rice or even meat, which are boiled up for
\ndinner.<\/p>\n
Yan's world has been full of garbage for every day of the last
\nfive years. Garbage surrounds him everywhere, in the huts,
\nbetween the trees and bushes and at school. Yan drinks water
\ncollected from rudimentary wells. The water is also used for
\nwashing and cooking, and, like most children living in the area,
\nYan sometimes gets intestinal worms.<\/p>\n
In spite of that, Yan is one of the \"lucky\" children of Bantar
\nGebang.<\/p>\n
Unlike most of his friends, he has been attending school since
\nthe age of four. This is unusual, as only 138 of about 700
\nchildren in Bantar Gebang attend school regularly. Most parents
\nare reluctant to send their children to school because they
\ndepend on them to earn between 10 percent and 30 percent of the
\nfamily income.<\/p>\n
As far back as Yan can remember, his school was always rather
\nramshackle, like all other places in the area. \"When it rained,
\nwe all had to run home because the roof leaked,\" he said. \"And
\nthe tables were broken. It was a rotten building.\"<\/p>\n
But lately, there have been quite a lot of changes in Yan's
\nkampong which abuts the garbage dump.<\/p>\n
Three months ago, volunteers of the new Lentera Hati group,
\nwhich is part of the Yayasan Mata Hati organization, visited the
\ninhabitants of the Bantar Gebang area. They started work straight
\naway, advising people about cleanliness and health. They gave
\nmedicine to the children, 100 percent of whom have intestinal
\nworms and 80 percent anemia, and they built 18 new water pumps,
\nwhich provide the people from Bantar Gebang with clean water.<\/p>\n
And finally, they built a new school for the children, maybe
\nthe first place in Bantar Gebang completely free of garbage.<\/p>\n
The Bantar Gebang school is an informal school, which means
\nthat most of the students do not attend class when a decent
\ndelivery of garbage arrives. Subjects are tailored to the
\nstudents' way of life. For example, there are more lessons about
\nhealth and hygiene than in other schools. The teachers, too, have
\nto adjust to the children's way of living.<\/p>\n
\"These children are not like other children,\" explained Tuti,
\nwho has worked here as a teacher for five years. \"They are wild,
\nthey are used to earning their own living, they want to play like
\nother children, but they can't. And they need special teaching,
\nbecause most of them cannot attend school every day. When the
\ntrucks come, they run off.\"<\/p>\n
At the inauguration of the new school on Saturday last week,
\nthe children from Bantar Gebang did not seem like little adults
\nwho have to work up to 14 hours a day as scavengers and who
\nseldom have time to play like other children. The place in front
\nof the new school was full of delightful, laughing children in
\nneat white and red school uniforms, eager to get all they could
\nout of this big party.<\/p>\n
Only a few boys stood behind the crowds of parents, children
\nand volunteers of Lentera Hati, not wearing school uniforms like
\nthe others but instead wearing their usual dirty shirts and
\nshorts.<\/p>\n
\"I live too far from here,\" said one of them. \"My parents
\ndon't allow me to go to school, because it would involve too much
\ntime.\"<\/p>\n
But even though he is not able to go to school, this
\ncelebration was a happy day off work for him.<\/p>\n
\"We want this to be a special day in their lives, which they
\nwon't forget,\" explained Andi B. Salim from Lentera Hati.<\/p>\n
\"They not only need health and education, they also need
\nentertainment, an opportunity to be real children.\"<\/p>\n
So on that day, the new school was filled with balloons, and
\nthree clowns entertained the children by balancing pots on
\nsticks. In addition to that, the cleanest children were given
\npresents, like new schoolbags to encourage them not to forget
\nwhat they have learned about health.<\/p>\n
\"We hope the new school with its three classrooms, new wooden
\ntables, proper toilets, a teachers' room and a library, will make
\nthe parents more aware of the importance of their children
\nattending school to achieve a better way of living, for when they
\nare grown up,\" said Andi.<\/p>\n
Even though the children do not have to pay school fees, the
\nmain problem, Andi said, \"is not money, but the education of the
\nparents\".<\/p>\n
But that does not seem to be true for all of the parents. The
\npopulation of the area has increased from 638 households to about
\n1,000 in the last three months due to the economic crises, and
\nearning a living has become harder for the families of Bantar
\nGebang.<\/p>\n
\"I can't afford to sent my children to school,\" one of the
\nfathers said sadly. \"I only earn about Rp 3,000 a day now. I need
\nmy children to work.\"<\/p>\n
There is still lots of work to be done in Bantar Gebang. The
\nnew school building is only the beginning of improving their lot.
\n\"Aid does not stop with the building of this school. Lentera Hati
\nwill continue the health program here,\" explained Andi.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/bekasi-child-scavengers-get-new-school-at-garbage-dump-1447893297",
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