Seeing Indonesia through children's eyes

Seeing Indonesia through children's eyes

Moch. N. Kurniawan and
Novan Iman Santosa
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

People may respond differently about how to help resolve the
problem of street children in big cities like Jakarta or in
conflict areas like Sambas and Pontianak in West Kalimantan.

Supporting children with materials, adopting them or
sheltering them in a halfway house are among the options.

However, programs to help those children build self esteem,
self respect and high hopes for their future are invaluable for
their future.

In Jakarta the group A Child's Eye Foundation has tried to do
just that by publishing a child's eye: Indonesia through the eyes
of a child. It is a book consisting of photographs taken by
street and refugees children aged between 10 and 18 years old in
Jakarta, Sambas and Pontianak.

Before publishing the book, the foundation exhibited the
photos at the National Museum of Pontianak to mark the
Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in
Singkawang (West Kalimantan) and in the Galeri Nasional in
Jakarta.

Some 100 children, not all of them street children
necessarily, were lucky to get a rare chance to be publicly
recognized.

Some of the pictures in the 160-page book are of very good
quality by any standard.

The book is divided into two chapters: Jakarta and West
Kalimantan.

On the cover, there is an interesting picture of an older boy
and a younger boy shuffling down a narrow street embracing each
other. It was taken by Supri, a 17-year-old street boy in
Jakarta.

Without a caption explaining the picture, which is also shown
on page 81, readers might get the impression that the kid in the
photo is helping an injured man walk or they are homosexual
couple.

The black and white picture also reflects the decay and filth
of Jakarta and the byproduct of the angst felt by many -- the
ever-present graffiti on walls.

This photo indeed tells thousands of words.

Moh. Agoenk's dramatic pictures on page 42 and 43 describe
various violent episodes in Jakarta's recent past.

In his pictures, Agoenk, who later received a scholarship from
Antara news agency to enrol in a photojournalism course, praised
those who fight for human rights.

After the Jakarta section from page 16 to 81, we next get to
appreciate the photos taken by children from Chinese, Madurese
and Dayak ethnic groups in West Kalimantan.

Several beautiful pictures of beaches, rivers, rainbows and
paddy fields from page 84 to 89 are in sharp contrast to the
conflicts that that area has seen in the past few years.

A dramatic picture on page 98 taken by Abdul, 14, shows a thug
with a knife to the throat of a woman, but we are not told what
happens next, and unfortunately the man's face is not clearly
visible.

On pages 109 to 111 there are some religious photos showing
several of the main religions in Indonesia.

Co-editor Laura Munaba said all the pictures selected were
deemed to be the best of a large collection of photos.

"Many of their pictures are good but we had to sort out the
best ones for the book," she said.

Comparing the Jakarta and West Kalimantan pictures, it is
apparent that the Jakarta photographers were more focused on
people, and the Kalimantan photographers on nature and criminals.

The disparity seems to reflect their different states of mind
and how they relate to daily life.

After all, it is Indonesia, seen through the eyes of its
children.

Tjoki Rezia Nurzirwan, A Child's Eye Foundation co-founder,
said in a soft launching of the book in Jimbaran, Bali that
publishing the book was not as important as developing the
children's self-confident.

"The children's confidence will increase when they know that
their work is appreciated by many people. Many of them have high
hopes to continue in the field of photography, a place that may
make their dreams come true," she said.

The book mentions that street children in Jakarta participated
in a workshop on photography put on by A Child's Eye Foundation
for six months in 1999.

The other workshops with the same goal were held later in 2000
in West Kalimantan with children whose families had fled various
conflict zones.

However, the foundation encountered big problems in West
Kalimantan when they attempted to put together children from
three ethnic groups -- the Madurese transmigrants, the Dayaks and
the Chinese -- due to the ongoing conflict at that time.

During one workshop, there were signs of hostility among the
children at first, but cooler heads prevailed and they ended up
producing several nice pictures.

Their work hard has borne fruit as the children were able to
take a wide variety of interesting pictures and write some
reasonable captions -- beware of the English translations,
however.

If you are lucky enough to get one of the first 500 limited
editions it will be signed by Guruh Soekarnoputra, former
president Sukarno's son.

Nonetheless, with all the difficulties to motivate the
children to develop their photography skills, not to mention
their self esteem, self respect and hope for a better life, the
effort to publish this book deserves praise.

A Child's eye: Indonesia through the eyes of a child
Editor: Alex Wrottesley, Laura Munaba
Yayasan Mata Anak
Jakarta, 2002
160 pp