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. (05)