Jakarta's street children take a closer look at themselves

By Des Price

JAKARTA (JP): Recent initiatives for working with street children, such as the David Glass Ensemble, where children took part in drama and music workshops and performed the play The Lost Child, have taken an imaginative direction.

Street children, who usually spend their time begging, busking or selling, also took time off to try something new: becoming photographers in a new project to document their lives and the communities in which they live, able to take photographs of people without creating inhibitions as an outside photographer might.

The project was the initiative of 33-year-old English photographer Jonathan Perugia and is a part of A Child's Eye Action Group, a nonprofit organization created earlier this year by Guruh Soekarnoputra and Choki Rezia. The organization supports children's initiatives in Indonesia and around the world. Perugia, who is the art and technical adviser, has been involved at every stage, from finding sponsors to arranging exhibitions.

No expense was spared in equipping the 30 children. They went out into their neighborhoods armed with good quality pocket cameras; only two of the 30 cameras issued found new owners.

The project was run in conjunction with Atma Jaya University's Studio 51 photographic club. Street children were selected for the project by five local non-governmental organizations, who chose children from a range of social situations and locations around the city.

The children participated at every stage, attending workshops by professional photographers at Atma Jaya University. They then took photographs and assisted with editing, layout and selection of the photographs, which will grace the walls of the National Gallery in Jakarta from Nov. 17 through Nov. 23.

The workshops were designed to bring out the children's own creativity as well as to help them develop basic composition skills. They ran around playing musical statues and photographed each other with Polaroid cameras, seeing instantly the results of their work. In other workshops they learned the need to get close to their subjects through a "treasure hunt" -- finding items of certain colors, shapes and textures and photographing them. The children even were assigned homework, on one occasion photographing places and people they dislike.

Fourteen-year-old Kokom, like many of the children on the project, enjoyed the experience.

"I was very happy taking part in the project. I had never held a camera before, so I wanted to try it out. Some of the time we could photograph whatever we wanted using our own ideas and imagination. I photographed street singers at a market. Before this I couldn't take a picture, now I can."

Throughout the project, the children could be creative and get positive feedback and guidance, which was beneficial for their self-esteem. The children could use this medium to tell their own stories, and for some this was the first time in their lives that they had contact with adults who were willing to listen to them.

Agung, 16,, a street child since he was nine years old, was eager to learn from the experience: "I was curious to find out what it would be like taking photographs. It felt awkward in the beginning, but I was interested to learn. I learned more about life outside. I got to know lots of new people."

He photographed a disabled man who was on his hands and knees crawling between motorcycles begging. The children were asked to write comments on the back of the photographs.

Agung wrote: "This is a crippled man with his imperfect body begging for money to buy one spoonful of rice. He has been abandoned by his family."

Agung talked about his conversation with the man and his aspirations.

"The man said to me that this was his only job, and that he was forced to beg for money. What he wanted was for some organization to accept him and give him somewhere to live."

A group of half a dozen boys was asked what they thought of the project and responded with a chorus of "Bagus" (Great). Asked if they would take part in a similar project, they responded with a resolute yes.

During the time spent on the project, the children took hundreds of photographs which clearly define the environment of urban decay in which they exist. The subjects of the photographs -- often the street children themselves -- portray the sorrow and struggle of their lives, the drug and solvent abuse and the squalid living conditions.

But they also depict moments of happiness where poor people share a collective spirit of survival, retaining their sense of humor and dignity; qualities which not even abject poverty can completely erode. Young people were photographed larking around while others simply sat smiling, whiling away the hours in the midday heat.

Perugia sees the photographs as covering a broad spectrum of life in the capital. "The photographs the children have taken show all sides of life in Jakarta -- the good, the bad, the joy and the poverty."

Jonathan is satisfied with the way the project has developed and sees its impact as lasting. "It has been a dance of synchronicity and chance, with people everywhere offering to help. This will not be just an arty-farty thing, quickly forgotten, but will leave real grassroots social and creative legacies."

A Child's Eye hopes that the photographic exhibition will provide an arena for discussion, attracting individuals, government officials and non-governmental and community based organizations. In particular, A Child's Eye Action Group wants to bring attention to issues concerning children's social welfare, and to stimulate interest in funding for welfare initiatives. It also wants to organize further arts projects for children.