Street children highlight their plight at meeting

By Yogita Tahil Ramani

JAKARTA (JP): Watching through tinted windows of cars, we cannot really begin to understand how desperately street children yearn for the basic necessities of life.

Talk with them, and their concerns become a little clearer.

Whether it is Dahlia, who scavenges around the Bantar Gebang garbage dump in East Jakarta for food, or 16-year-old beggar Syamsu from Bandung, West Java, the needs hardly differ from one street child to another.

They are food, clean drinking water, a job, a home, a school or all of the above. Street children expressed what they need in life in a public dialog at the Jakarta Arts Institute's fine arts complex, Central Jakarta, last week.

The dialog was a part of a four-day event organized by the Sanggar Anak Akar (Root Studio), The Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ), cultural working groups, high schools and individual volunteers.

The dialog was attended by about 300 people comprising street children and students from schools and universities, including the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta and Tarakanita High School here.

Ambara, a high school dropout and street kid from Duren Sawit, East Jakarta, said more children were discontinuing their studies and being forced to make money on the streets.

"We cannot afford to pay for school uniforms... let alone textbooks and final exam fees."

Ambara, who recently dropped out of school, said that with job opportunities becoming harder to find due to the crisis, she spent her days playing with her street friends and helping her mother with housework.

Kopral, 16, from Bandung, voiced his determination to live on and never quit looking for a job as long as it was decent and had nothing to do with drugs, scalping or prostitution.

"For four years, I have worked the streets of Jakarta and Bandung looking for work. Now, in Bandung, I do paper recycling. It does not pay much, but I can eat," he said.

Though possessing the will to work hard, some children lack the strength and stamina to keep up with the competition.

Former newspaper vendor Adi, 18, said it took effort and persuasion to land a newspaper or magazine sale.

"With prices way up it is so difficult to sell a newspaper these days... you have to beg and make a sale within two minutes," Adi told The Jakarta Post.

Working from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Adi would usually eat once a day, sometimes only rice with tempeh or taro.

"I had to run and keep up so that I could sell newspapers... it's difficult on the streets. There is a lot of pushing and shoving among the sellers."

Adi added that he stopped selling newspapers because he could because he could not keep up with more aggressive vendors.

"Now I sing on streets. This way even if my voice is not strong and I sing awful, I still get paid."

In his spare time, Adi sells Niat, a 11-page bulletin by the about 40 Sanggar Anak Akar children and Jakarta Social Institute (ISJ) volunteers, published every three months.

ISJ volunteer and chief editor Ibe Karyanto said the bulletin was started four years ago by Catholic priest Ignatius Sandyawan Sumardi.

"The Sanggar conducts study groups twice a week, but you just cannot have students learning language and writing skills. They need to practice it," he said.

He explained that they opted for a bulletin over a magazine because the latter cost more money and time than they had.

Ibe said that they often "switched" from one printing house to another for better deals. Initially in 1995, they had invested a little over Rp 1 million and published 1,000 bulletins. Currently, the cost is Rp 3.2 million for 3,000.

"The Sanggar Anak Akar children not only learn to write well, but they make money selling Niat. They are free to sell it for more than Rp 2,000," Ibe said.

For every extra Rp 1,000, a child gets to keep Rp 500.

Niat features poetry, crayon drawings, experiences of children on the streets, details on upcoming events and gatherings.

Itoe said that he managed to sell 45 to 50 copies a day. The 17-year-old related how he joined Sanggar after being placed in a shelter in Cipayung, East Jakarta.

"I got out of there by bribing the guard with Rp 4,000. By chance, I met a volunteer from the Sanggar who made me stay with him.

"He brought me to one of the Sanggar study groups. I enjoyed them for a while but then, I got bored."

Itoe said that although volunteers never used the "teacher's tone" when advising them about ways to live a good life, he did not enjoy their discourses on antidrug use, among other subjects. The boy, who claimed he did not do drugs, said he did not like speaking formal Indonesian language, either.

"But then, when I started to miss my friends here (at the Sanggar), I came back. The study groups are not so boring now."

Ibe said the mobility of street children was high.

"All they do have to do is hop on a train or sit on top of a cargo truck. They could reach Yogyakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, East Java and other places."