City plans to raze school for blind

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An internationally acclaimed training center for the blind in East Jakarta, may soon be demolished by the city administration to make way for the expansion of a city-owned hospital.

Panti Taman Harapan's spokesperson, Rojiin Faqih, said on Friday that the center would be relocated to Cengkareng area, West Jakarta.

"The Budhi Asih Hospital management is going to provide more wards for its upmarket patients," he told The Jakarta Post.

The 2,911-square-meter Panti Taman Harapan is located at the back of the hospital in Cawang, East Jakarta.

Faqih said that two orphanages had already been demolished by the city administration for the expansion of the hospital. A banner hanging at the front of the hospital states that the orphanages have been moved to Tebet, South Jakarta.

The city administration had earlier issued an order for Panti Taman Harapan to be vacated by Nov. 3, 2002, but due to steadfast resistance, the planned eviction was postponed until 2005.

But despite the postponement, Faqih suspects that a plan is afoot to vacate the center earlier.

"After the Jakarta Social Affairs Agency delayed the plan, the center management stopped receiving new students. We're afraid that eventually there will be no more new students, so the agency could do anything before 2005," he said.

He added that several people on the centers managing committee, and teachers who had opposed the plan, had been threatened to comply.

Panti Taman Harapan, established during the Dutch colonial era in the early 1900s, was formerly owned by the Ministry of Social Affairs. The city administration took over its management with the regional autonomy policy in 2000.

The center provides blind people with education, and training in a variety of skills. Currently, over 40 people spend most of the day there.

Tubagus Haryo Karbyantoro of Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta), who provides advocacy to the opponents of the relocation plan, said relocating the center to Cengkareng would only cause its regulars a myriad of problems.

He said that the new location was not suitable. Furthermore, the blind students, and other regular visitors to the center, were well liked among their current neighborhood.

Contacted separately, head of the Spiritual Development and Social Welfare Agency (Bintalkesos) Syarifudin Mahfud gave a contradictory statement to the city administration's move. He said there was no plan to relocate Panti Taman Harapan.

"We want to move students from the center for the blind in Cengkareng to Cawang instead," he told the Post.