A child's eye: How children see Indonesia

Moch. N. Kurniawan and Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

People may respond differently about how to help resolve the problem of street children in big cities like Jakarta or in conflict areas like Sambas and Pontianak in West Kalimantan.

Supporting children with materials, adopting them or sheltering them in a halfway house are among the options.

However, programs to help those children build self esteem, self respect and high hopes for their future are invaluable for their future.

In Jakarta the group A Child's Eye Foundation has tried to do just that by publishing a child's eye: Indonesia through the eyes of a child. It is a book consisting of photographs taken by street and refugees children aged between 10 and 18 years old in Jakarta, Sambas and Pontianak.

Before publishing the book, the foundation exhibited the photos at the National Museum of Pontianak to mark the Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in Singkawang (West Kalimantan) and in the Galeri Nasional in Jakarta.

Some 100 children, not all of them street children necessarily, were lucky to get a rare chance to be publicly recognized.

Some of the pictures in the 160-page book are of very good quality by any standard.

The book is divided into two chapters: Jakarta and West Kalimantan.

On the cover, there is an interesting picture of an older boy and a younger boy shuffling down a narrow street embracing each other. It was taken by Supri, a 17-year-old street boy in Jakarta.

Without a caption explaining the picture, which is also shown on page 81, readers might get the impression that the kid in the photo is helping an injured man walk or they are homosexual couple.

The black and white picture also reflects the decay and filth of Jakarta and the byproduct of the angst felt by many -- the ever-present graffiti on walls.

This photo indeed tells thousands of words.

Moh. Agoenk's dramatic pictures on page 42 and 43 describe various violent episodes in Jakarta's recent past.

In his pictures, Agoenk, who later received a scholarship from Antara news agency to enrol in a photojournalism course, praised those who fight for human rights.

After the Jakarta section from page 16 to 81, we next get to appreciate the photos taken by children from Chinese, Madurese and Dayak ethnic groups in West Kalimantan.

Several beautiful pictures of beaches, rivers, rainbows and paddy fields from page 84 to 89 are in sharp contrast to the conflicts that that area has seen in the past few years.

A dramatic picture on page 98 taken by Abdul, 14, shows a thug with a knife to the throat of a woman, but we are not told what happens next, and unfortunately the man's face is not clearly visible.

On pages 109 to 111 there are some religious photos showing several of the main religions in Indonesia.

Co-editor Laura Munaba said all the pictures selected were deemed to be the best of a large collection of photos.

"Many of their pictures are good but we had to sort out the best ones for the book," she said.

Comparing the Jakarta and West Kalimantan pictures, it is apparent that the Jakarta photographers were more focused on people, and the Kalimantan photographers on nature and criminals.

The disparity seems to reflect their different states of mind and how they relate to daily life.

After all, it is Indonesia, seen through the eyes of its children.

Tjoki Rezia Nurzirwan, A Child's Eye Foundation co-founder, said in a soft launching of the book in Jimbaran, Bali that publishing the book was not as important as developing the children's self-confident.

"The children's confidence will increase when they know that their work is appreciated by many people. Many of them have high hopes to continue in the field of photography, a place that may make their dreams come true," she said.

The book mentions that street children in Jakarta participated in a workshop on photography put on by A Child's Eye Foundation for six months in 1999.

The other workshops with the same goal were held later in 2000 in West Kalimantan with children whose families had fled various conflict zones.

However, the foundation encountered big problems in West Kalimantan when they attempted to put together children from three ethnic groups -- the Madurese transmigrants, the Dayaks and the Chinese -- due to the ongoing conflict at that time.

During one workshop, there were signs of hostility among the children at first, but cooler heads prevailed and they ended up producing several nice pictures.

Their work hard has borne fruit as the children were able to take a wide variety of interesting pictures and write some reasonable captions -- beware of the English translations, however.

If you are lucky enough to get one of the first 500 limited editions it will be signed by Guruh Soekarnoputra, former president Sukarno's son.

Nonetheless, with all the difficulties to motivate the children to develop their photography skills, not to mention their self esteem, self respect and hope for a better life, the effort to publish this book deserves praise.

A Child's eye: Indonesia through the eyes of a child Editor: Alex Wrottesley, Laura Munaba Yayasan Mata Anak Jakarta, 2002 160 pp