Helping poor children through charity programs

T. Sima Gunawan, Contributor, Jakarta

For some children, rain means money. As the clouds hang in the sky, they get ready to "work" -- renting out umbrellas to those who need them.

You can easily find them in public places, outside office buildings or in shopping centers, such as in the parking lots of the Pondok Indah Mall in South Jakarta.

The children will happily let you use their umbrellas to protect you from the rain while walking to the building entrance. They also offer the service to those who have finished shopping and want to get into their cars without getting wet.

As for the children, they will follow behind you, braving the rain -- no matter how hard it is. Despite being soaked to the skin, the child usually gets a small tip of just Rp 1,000 or Rp 2,000 (less than 25 U.S. cent)

The children's struggle to earn some money moved the executives of PT Metropolitan Retailmart, which runs the Metro department store in the plush shopping mall. They started to make efforts to help the children in 1999.

In the beginning, they merely taught the children to manage their earnings. Later on, the company provided scholarships for a number of the children. Some of them were also recruited as temporary or permanent employees upon their graduation from high school.

Metro also has some other charity programs for disadvantaged children, which are run in cooperation with Unicef and Metro customers.

"The children deserve a better future than being beggars on the street or crooks," said Imelda Walla, Metro's promotions executive.

Despite a statement from the government that the number of poor people has drastically dropped from 23.4 percent of the population in 1999 to 18.2 percent in 2002, and 17.4 percent in 2003, or about 37.50 million people in all, the facts show that many people find life hard and that the crime rate remains high, while there seems to be more and more street children in big cities like Jakarta.

The Constitution says that the state must take care of poor people and orphans -- even though this has never been implemented properly. But the private sector and capable individuals also have a social responsibility toward the needy.

It is good to know that many companies are taking part in efforts to help the poor through various charity programs. This is good not only for the children but also for the companies as it boosts their images.

PT HM Sampoerna Tbk has a program called Karya Kita, which it launched in 1999 as a manifestation of its social responsibilities toward the education of children. This is intended as a long-term educational program.

As a start, the program focuses on the arts as educational aids. Besides exploring the talents of children, the children are also trained how to work together, express their opinions, appreciate the opinions of others, maintain discipline and develop the spirit that is necessary for achieving their goals.

From 1999 to 2004, Karya Kita has become involved in a variety of art activities, including the Karya Kita Sahabat Kita program involving street children in Jakarta, and the Karya Kita Paduan Suara Anak Bangsa, a children's choir whose members are elementary students from Jakarta's outskirts and orphanages.

Sampoerna also holds workshops on the theater, film and music for children in a number of cities, and campaigns to increase their awareness of the environment.

Another program is Pustaka Kita, which was launched in 2003 in Surabaya to inculcate the reading habit in children from an early age. The Pustaka Kita is actually a mobile library that visits those elementary schools that lack sufficient reading materials. This program, operated in cooperation with Airlangga University, provides a collection of several hundreds books on fiction, science and religion, as well as newspapers, magazines and scientific CDs.

Earlier, in 1996, Sampoerna launched a program called Ensiklopedia Bangsaku (My Nation's Encyclopedia), which reminded parents of the importance of inculcating traditional values and norms in their children based on Indonesia's traditions and cultures.

"Sampoerna believes that the future of Indonesia and succeeding generations depends on what parents do today with their children," said Santi Djiwandono, a company public relations executive.

Nestle Indonesia is another company that is greatly concerned with the problems of needy children, as can be seen from the various charity programs it runs targeting, among others, scouts, orphans and street kids.

"Some are organized by our own employees as individuals. For example, ahead of Idul Fitri or Christmas, they often stage activities to help poor children, and we fully support them," Brata Hardjosubroto, head of Nestle public relations, said.

Other programs are conducted in cooperation with a social group called Melati, as well as a number of foundations and organizations.

The desire to help, however, is sometimes misunderstood by others, who have accused the company of donating expired products to the poor.

"This is not correct," Brata said. "We never give them expired products."

Every package always states that the product is best before a certain date. If it is properly stored, it can still be consumed for several months afterwards. The products that remain unsold on the date stated on the packages are all withdrawn from the market. Considering that they are actually still good, the company gives them to orphanages or those who need them, on condition that they are consumed immediately.

But not all of the milk and other nutritious drinks donated by Nestle fall into this category as the company also sets aside a portion of its regular products for the poor.

"Basically our programs to help the poor are part of our Community Development and Corporate Social Responsibility Programs," Brata added.

A company's efforts to assist disadvantaged children may not always run smoothly as the company might be forced to delay or put off the program for various reasons.

PT Mitra Adi Perkasa, which has run Kidz Station and Osh Kosh for the last five years, started to organize charity programs for disadvantaged children in 2002. But this year, they decided to delay the annual program until after the presidential election in September.

"We really care about children, but we haven't conducted any charity programs for them this year due to the political situation," said Irawati, the firm's advertising and promotions manager.

She added, however, that the upcoming program would be bigger in scale and was expected to reach more children compared to previous activities.