Street children's money

After reading the article Mean parents, local mafia ... in the April 26 edition of The Jakarta Post, I feel that the last paragraph gives a completely false impression of the financial status of the street children in the "Alang-alang" group which I look after.

It is true that they now have somewhere to stay, in a small rented house, instead of sleeping at the bus terminal at night. However, the Rp 7.5 million for renting the house was donated by students of the Surabaya International School (SIS) from fund- raising activities in their community service program, not from money earned from performances. The children can only make enough money from playing in the streets to buy food and basic clothing, and they have to give the rest to help support their families.

When they have any extra income from performances, I encourage them to save some money to pay for medicine if they get sick. We certainly would not have been able to afford to rent house without the help of SIS and the local NGO "Little Care" who helped to arrange this.

DIDIT HAPE

Surabaya