Street children find refuge in UN program

Street children find refuge in UN program

JAKARTA (JP): Today has been declared International Day for
the Eradication of Poverty by the United Nations' General
Assembly. But how is poverty being addressed here?

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) -- which has
labeled poverty eradication its "number one job" -- has
implemented a pilot project which provides open houses for
Indonesian street children.

The joint project is run in cooperation with the Ministry of
Social Services in seven cities: Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang,
Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Medan and Ujungpandang.

Two of the open houses for street children sponsored by UNDP
and the ministry are Setia Kawan I and Setia Kawan II, which are
located respectively in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, and
Pulogadung, East Jakarta.

In conjunction with the commemoration of the international
day, UNDP invited reporters to have a look at Setia Kawan II on
Wednesday.

Built in April and run by the Indonesian Children's Welfare
Foundation (YKAI), the open house has cared for 101 street
children from the Pulo Gadung area.

The house was built to ensure Wawan, Asep, Darmo, Asbon and
other street children like them do not sleep in terminals and
other public places.

Are they happy staying at the house? While answers varied,
most of the children said they liked to stay at the house and in
public places.

Wawan, 12, one of Setia Kawan II's residents, said he was
found by a social worker and taken to the open house.

After being abandoned by his mother, who "fled" to Malaysia as
a migrant worker after the death of his father, Wawan decided to
follow his friends from his hometown of Semarang to Jakarta last
month.

He did anything to make a living on the street. As he had no
place to spend the nights, he started using the Pulogadung Bus
Terminal as his "house".

But the open house allowed him the freedom to choose whether
he wanted to stay there or go away, he said.

"But I like to sleep either in the house or on the street."

Wawan is now working as a tissue vendor and shoe polisher and
he earns about Rp 2,000 (US$0.57) to Rp 3,000 per day.

His friend Asep, 13, who hails from Tasikmalaya, West Java,
and works as a car washer, wanted to be independent and refused
to stay with his divorced parents.

Sleeping at public places used to be his only option before he
moved to the open house in April. Asep earns between Rp 5,000 and
Rp 8,000 per day.

Asep prefers to spend the night at bus terminals rather than
the house, he said.

"I can wake up earlier at the terminals, thereby enabling me
to earn money earlier," he said. "But every time I sleep here I
wake up late."

The head of the open house, Tata Sudrajat, said that Setia
Kawan II was designed to give shelter to outcast children who
spent their days on the street.

He said the concept of the open house was to give children the
freedom to come and go anytime they liked.

During their stay, social workers talk with them and take note
of their problems and needs. The social workers also try to help
them live in accordance with social norms.

"The open house is expected to help them search for a way to
stop living off the street and find better opportunities," he
said.

The number of street children in Indonesia this year is
estimated to be 50,000. In Jakarta alone, the number of homeless
children has reached about 5,000, according to UNDP's 1994 data.
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