Special disabled school faces community reluctance

Special disabled school faces community reluctance

YOGYAKARTA (JP): SLB Darma Putera, a school for the disabled,
was established in the Semin subdistrict, Gunungkidul, to
accommodate some 600 local mentally handicapped people in the
region.

However, the school only has 36 students.

"The toughest task is indeed making local people understand
the importance of sending their intellectually disabled children
to the school," said Sutarti, 41, one of the teachers.

In this school the students -- together with two other deaf
students -- are taught basic human skills such as how to eat, how
to take a bath, how to get dressed and other simple skills
including simple carpentry and land cultivation skills.

"The main purpose is to prepare the students in such a way so
that they will eventually have the ability to at least take care
of themselves," Sutarti said.

The school has seven teachers, including a headmaster and two
teachers who are on probation. The headmaster and four other
full-time teachers are civil servants.

Founded in July 1999 by the Darma Putera Foundation, the
school initially used the Bulurejo I elementary school building
as the location for the teaching and learning experience. To take
into account the school's formally enrolled students, the Darma
Putera Foundation ran their teaching activities in the afternoon,
after school hours.

However, the school's elementary students, usually returned to
the school in the afternoon to observe the intellectually
disabled students participate in their classes.

"They made us as an object of amusement. Of course it
disturbed the students. They could not concentrate on the
learning activities," Sutarti said, adding that the foundation
finally decided in 1993 to move the school to a house in
Karangpoh belonging to one of the foundation's founding fathers.

Despite the shift, the students were unable to concentrate on
activities there. The reason for their inattentiveness was not
because the house was only a plain Javanese house made of plaited
bamboo strips and wood, but simply because as it was located in
the center of the subvillage, the house was too noisy a location
to study. So the following year, the foundation made another move
to a quieter house as humble as the previous address belonging to
the parents of three of the intellectually disabled children. The
foundation's schooling activities survived for two years at that
address. The decision to build a proper school was made thanks to
a donation of Rp 54 million from a Dutch non-governmental
organization World Kenderen Netherlands through the Coordinating
Board of Social Welfare Activities.

A building with four classrooms was built on a 3,000-square
meter plot located in the subvillage of Kracaan in Semin. The
school was officially opened on Dec. 27, 1997, as the SLB Darma
Putera building. An 18 by 10 square meter orphanage for
intellectually disabled children was also built two years later,
with a Rp 71.4 million donation from the Jakarta-based PT ISM
Bogasari. Opened in Sept. 1999, the orphanage currently
accommodates 25 disabled children, mostly from the Karangpoh
subvillage.

Sutarti said the greatest obstacle was finding donations to
run the school, and most importantly to supply the orphans with
food. All 38 students of SLB Darma Putera -- including the
children at the orphanage -- receive their schooling and
accommodation free of charge.

"They are all from poor families. Most of their parents do not
even have a fixed job," Sutarti said.

The teacher said that things became harder as most disabled
people were big eaters. She said they needed portions which were
three times bigger than that of normal people. A minimum of Rp
4,125 million is needed every month just for food.

"Thank God we were recently given a donation of Rp 3.15
million from the Social Security Network," she said.

Sutarti, one of the original staff members at the school, is a
graduate of Surakarta's School for the Disabled.

She recalled the times when she went from mosque to mosque on
the eve of Idul Fitri, looking for donations from zakat fitrah
paid by Muslims. Zakat fitrah is the tithe paid in rice or money
on the last day of the fasting month of Ramadhan.

Sutarti said that it was a relief that logistic support
sometime came unexpectedly from people outside the region.
Passersby from Jakarta, Yogyakarta and other places often dropped
by the school to deliver a sack of rice, a box of instant noodles
or even educational toys.

"We're still worried about covering the daily expenses,"
Sutarti said.

Aware of the fact that there are hundreds of other
intellectually disabled children in the region who badly need
proper education, the school staff members -- including Sutarti
-- are planning to make another door-to-door home visit to
families with intellectually disabled children. The school
considers it's important to do so to prevent such children from
turning to a desperate life on the street.

"However slow the learning process is, they are still human
beings. They deserve to be treated humanly regardless of their
intellectual disability," Sutarti said. (swa)