Boarding school supports birth control campaign

TANGERANG, West Java (JP): Leaders of a well-known Islamic boarding school pledged Saturday to cooperate with the government in their promotion of a family planning program for Moslem families.

Leaders of the Daar El Qolam boarding school, with 2,000 students, the Armed Forces (ABRI) and senior government officials closed their deal in a lively ceremony in Balaraja subdistrict, 35 kilometers west of Jakarta.

For ABRI, the advocation activities to help the school leaders promote family planning among Moslem families will be part of its civic mission program in the area.

Akhmad Riva'i Arief, a respected kyai (religious leader) of Daar El Qolam, said that the family planning program was in line with the holy Koran's wisdom which says that next generations should be stronger.

He said the school would set up a training center for family planning instructors in local Moslem communities.

"We will combine the program with the "spiritual package" offered to people visiting the school to learn more about Koran, attend religious seminars, obtain marriage counseling as well as participate in fitness programs," Riva'i said.

More than twenty high-ranking military officers, including the Jakarta Military Commander Maj. Gen. A.M. Hendropriyono and State Minister of Population Haryono Suyono, also attended the ceremony.

Two students recited verses of the Koran, both in Arabic and its translation into Bahasa Indonesia, in front of some 4,000 attendants.

"Islam teaches us not to leave our children in misery and not to let people live below the poverty line," Haryono said.

Haryono, also the chairman of the National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN), told the audience that the Daar El Qolam could be developed further to be an international training ground for family planning officials from Moslem countries throughout Asia and Africa.

"You are trained to speak Arabic and English here. So we can invite our fellow Moslems from those countries to come and to learn in this school," he said.

Students of the boarding school, established in 1968 occupying a 9.5-hectare area, are required to speak English or Arabic in the classroom and thirty-five percent come from Jakarta.

Modern

The Daar El Qolam, proud of being a "modern" Islamic boarding school, teaches not only Arabic and Koran verses but also English and computer science.

Student work done in English and Arabic is displayed in every corner of the school.

The Daar El Qolam Foundation, which manages the school, recently opened another boarding school, the all-male Latansa Islamic school, at Cipanas area in Lebak, West Java with 600 students.

Haryono also officially introduced an advanced family planning program, the Keluarga Sejahtera (Prosperous Family) package, to supplement the previous Keluarga Berencana (Family Planning) program.

The new program promotes income generating activities among villagers and encourages urban people to spend their weekends in villages.

"It will affect economic activities in the villages and hopefully boost their incomes," said Haryono, recent recipient of the Asian Management Award.

Hendropriyono said that the Jakarta Military Command would fully support the collaboration, adding that the military annually conducts civic mission programs in rural areas to help villagers understand the family planning procedures.

The students clapped and cheered the two-star general every time he made humorous remarks such as when he was citing statistics about people suffering intestinal worms in Tangerang.

He said family planning programs could prevent people, including "the pretty students of Daar El Qolam" from such diseases.

Executives of two state-owned banks, Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN) and Bank Exim, as well as the PT Indosat telecommunication firm, donated Saturday Rp 300 million (US$142,000) to the Daar El Qolam to be utilized for income generating groups in villages around the school.

Hendropriyono contributed several sacks of cement to the school, some of whose classrooms still have not been tiled.

The Board of Technology Development and Application (BPPT) handed over a set of laboratory equipment.

Banners, logos and slogans of Keluarga Sejahtera, painted in blue and white colors, lined the street to the boarding school. (09)