Helping out others brings its own rewards

Monique Natalia, Contributor, Jakarta

During February and March it was an everyday sight to see young people hauling boxes and soliciting donations at traffic lights to help Jakarta's flood victims.

Unfortunately, this kind of "social work" done by young Indonesians on a regular basis is a rarity. It seems it takes a disaster for most young people to rally round a cause.

Some kids said that it is not that they don't care what is going on around them.

"Even if we want to do something good, the facilities just don't exist for us to do that," said Rani, 16, who attends a private school in Central Jakarta.

What she means by facilities are organizations and organized activities that invite youths to help out in social work. This is very different from countries like the United States, for example, where there are lots of organizations that are available for youths to volunteer for.

There are the few exceptions though, those young people who have the initiative to go and start something of their own to contribute something to the society.

Titin, a student of the University of Indonesia, joined with some of her friends in setting up a creativity workshop for the children of Kapuk village in North Jakarta. The workshop, Sanggar Anak Kapuk (Kapuk Children's Creative Workshop), was established in 1999, when the average age of the founding members was 19.

"At first we were a part of another social organization," Titin, the vice president of the group, explained. "But now we have become our own independent group called Lentera Anak Bangsa."

Sanggar Anak Kapuk is just one of their projects.

"We've all chipped in to rent a small house there to provide the children with a place where they can be creative and express themselves in their drawings and other artistic activities. We are planning to expand our activities and membership so that we can help more children."

The children of Kapuk village are from working-class families. They are not homeless nor orphans, but they are poor.

Why help them instead of, say, street kids?

"There are already a lot of organizations that are doing things for street children, like building shelters. There are also others who take care of orphans. We want to do something new," Titin, 22, said.

She said that these children still have families to support them, they cannot enjoy their childhood. Their playgrounds are garbage dumps where they hunt for discarded toys they can play with.

Some of them do not go to school because they simply cannot afford it. Titin and her friends are trying to put some joy and creativity into those children's lives. By teaching them drawing, dancing and singing, they are hoping to broaden the children's horizons and improve their chances for the future.

"For most of them it's a vicious circle," the student of the School of Social and Political Sciences explained. "Most of their parents are factory workers. If they don't do anything to better their chances for the future they will inevitably end up like their fathers, which is becoming a factory worker."

Their aim is to put a stop to this cycle.

The children are encouraged to enter into drawing competitions as one of their regular activities. It is not without a challenge, however, for every competition that they choose to enter, they have to think of a way to bring around 50 kids of all ages in rented buses with just around five chaperones.

But, all that trouble is worth it when they hear the name of one of their kids being announced as a winner. It is also a pride in itself to arrive at the village with a trophy and a parade of happy children that can be heard from miles off.

"These are the kind of things that motivate me," Titin answered referring to the happy faces of the "champions".

"I love children and I just wanted to do something useful for them."

Helping others while also helping himself is one of the main drives of Gary, 22, a peer counselor at a drug rehab center in Bogor.

Although he is the young peer counselor at the facility, Gary, has already been entrusted with the responsibility of being a house manager for the center and also a full-time peer counselor.

His tasks include developing daily activity programs for the residents and also teaching. But instead of teaching economics, which he studied in college, the recovering addict has to teach the subject of addiction which he learned during his training and through reading psychological books.

He became an addict when he entered junior high school.

"I started with marijuana, after that I moved on to pills and then in 1996 I started to get addicted to putauw (low-grade heroin)."

His addiction led him to do things like lie to his parents to get money to buy drugs and also sell his possessions.

"I used to think that I was the one controlling the drugs that I was using, but I was wrong. They were the ones controlling my life!"

When his frustrations with himself got the better of him, he started to look for a cure. He tried detoxification that involved taking other medication in order to get rid of his addiction.

However, after three unsuccessful years of detox he decided to enter himself into a rehabilitation center. He was a resident at the center for six months, and afterwards was trained to be an assistant peer counselor.

From the first day he entered the center one and a half years ago, he has not left the place, except for his few days off. He is staying there to help other residents who need his guidance.

"I am learning a lot here. Before, it was really hard for me to keep clean," Gary said. "By working here and helping out other junkies I am also helping myself to stay clean."

His scope now is not limited to the center's residents for he often gets invited to talk on local radio shows and also at seminars organized by schools.

He sees his work as a means to lead other young people away from the threats of drugs and to help those who have already become addicts. He claims that recovering junkies are the best counselors because they themselves have experienced the suffering and torture of trying to quit, and are thus able to sympathize with them and give them the support they do not get from others.

He also sees a reflection of himself in those addicts' wasted lives. That is his other motivation for abandoning his life to help other people start a new life of their own.