Their School

The Jakarta Post   |  Tue, 04/29/2008 3:42 PM  |  Life

A small school for children of trash pickers is hoping to effect change by giving them an education. Melinda Hewitt reports.

The hum of traffic on the toll road leading to the West Bekasi exit drones on in the distance. Fields of water hyacinth separate the toll road from the nearest buildings, including a small school. To the right of the entrance to the school is a small garden with cement seats and tables shaped and painted to resemble logs.

A sign proudly declares, “Our School, a school for underprivileged and scavenger children”. Located in Bintara, between Pondok Kelapa in East Jakarta and Bekasi, the school is only a few kilometers from its humble beginnings in the barracks of Transito, Jakarta’s transmigration training center, as an informal school for the children of migrant refugees fleeing conflict areas across the archipelago.

Of the 120 children who attend the elementary school, around 80 take the ‘school bus’ provided by the school. There are no seats and children pile into the minivan in batches from 10 scavenger settlements in the area. As a non-formal school, its students can undertake the equivalent of final elementary school exams in government schools, enabling them to get the all-important school certificate. The school has rented the land on which it is built for a period of five years, with an option to extend the lease. A nearby house functions as an office.

Like the community it serves, the school has had its share of evictions, first from Transito in an eviction carried out in the middle of the night by public order officers after most of the migrants had left, despite the fact that dozens of children of scavengers and street vendors were taking advantage of the school’s presence. A second location in an unused government school had to be vacated after two years despite a promised five years when it was mysteriously reclaimed, despite the fact that it had been repaired and renovated at the expense of the sponsors of the scavenger school.

The main hall of the new building, which doubles as a classroom, features a small library, with photos of the children adorning the walls. The room is sparsely furnished. Most of the items are donated, including two computers, an old organ, a set of angklung (bamboo musical instruments) and a refrigerator. The floor is cement, the walls are brick to a height of around one meter, while the upper part is made of woven rattan and bamboo, and there is a sturdy tin roof. With a sizable gap between the top of the walls and roof there is adequate ventilation, the ceiling is high and in the midday heat it is surprisingly cool.

There are three large classrooms and one small separate building for the kindergarten children.

Bougainvillea has been trained onto the roof from the nearby fence.

Eco-friendly bamboo is planted inside the fence that surrounds the school, camouflaging it from curious eyes and keeping it green and clean. There is not a single piece of litter on the whole property.

Plants in baskets hang from a roof that shelters an outdoor sink for washing plates. Two simple but clean bathrooms are provided for children and staff, along with an area for washing to prepare for prayers. The whole ambience is clean, green, orderly and tranquil. The only tell-tale sign of its locale is the occasional fly that wanders in from the piles of garbage in the nearby slum.

The value of education is now very tangible for the parents of these children. When they sell their goods to a middleman, whom they refer to as “boss”, they are often cheated because they cannot read the scales. Plastic, paper, cardboard, newspapers and aluminum cans are all weighed and the boss will pay the scavengers by the kilogram. The children can now double-check the weight of the goods and make sure their parents are paid accordingly.

When the parents of 10-year-old Indra wanted to visit their kampong in Karawang, West Java, they brought their son along. They needed him to read the numbers and the writing on the buses because, like an estimated 40 percent of the parents, they are illiterate.   

The school takes a pragmatic approach to learning math. “Children are taught to count using money. They learn surprisingly fast that way,” says head teacher Ibu Novi.

Besides the basic reading, writing, math, Bahasa Indonesia and science, children and parents learn skills that will hopefully help them earn an income and give them an alternative to scouring trashcans. This includes making bath soap with coconut oil they produce themselves, grating the coconut meat and extracting the oil using a traditional method with technology taught by the Bogor Institute of Agriculture.

They also produce dishwashing detergent, liquid hand soap and compost that they sell for Rp 5,000 a pack. Children and their parents also learn to make jamu (herbal medicine). Recycled paper is made into greeting cards with designs by the children themselves, with another scavenger school in Lebak Bulus providing the paper. There are sewing classes where children learn to make basic items such as aprons and covers for water dispensers or pyjamas. Mothers learn crocheting. Occasionally, children make traditional cakes and fruit juice, which they sell in the neighborhood.

“We teach reading and writing and skills according to the age and ability. Even the young ones need skills. They can draw and color in so they learn to make cards, while the older ones learn to make compost and to sew,” says school founder Dr. Irina Amongpradja.

A casual visitor to the school would find it hard to believe that these children work with their parents collecting reusable trash with their bare hands. They are now trained to take a bath every day. Now there are no more skin infections, lice or intestinal worms, a once common complaint even among ‘healthy’ children. Children are given worm medicine once every six months. Milk and vitamins in liquid form are given daily. Meals and snacks are provided three times a week.

After getting a glimpse of what they can achieve, some children realize they need not spend the rest of their life as a trash picker. One 15-year-old graduate of the school, Nurida, is now working in a garment factory in Sukabumi. She says she does not want to depend on her parents anymore and would like to send money home if she can. Nurida plans to come back next year to improve her sewing skills by taking a six-month course at the BLK, a live-in vocational skills training center that prepares young people for immediate employment.

The school has sent many children to attend the BLK program, where they can train to become a mechanic, or learn sewing, hair styling, air conditioning repair and welding. The program is available to children between the ages of 15 and 21 who have not been able to continue their schooling. In the final month of the program, the BLK finds a place where the children can work on an apprentice basis with the option of continuing to work there after they graduate. “We don’t want them to have to look for a job but we want them to create a job for themselves,” explains Dr. Irina.

Dr. Irina developed a passion for community development when, as a fresh graduate from medical school, she worked as chief of a district health center in a remote area of East Timor. Instead of the obligatory one year, she opted to stay for three years in a rural area with an erratic electricity supply. Not content to limit her services to community health and sanitation, she learned how to make products that could be used as a home industry to help provide employment, such as kolang kaling (a sweet dessert) prepared over a charcoal fire. She also taught villagers to read and write.

After achieving considerable success in the scavenger communities around Pondok Kelapa, Dr. Irina recruited friends and associates to implement similar programs in other areas of Jakarta. Similar schools have since sprung up in Bantar Gebang (where most of Jakarta’s garbage is dumped), Lebak Bulus, Pondok Cabe, Muara Karang, Cinangka and Cisarua, West Java. Between the schools there is a sharing of resources such as books and the organizing of exams and teacher training.

Dr. Irina hopes to see the country change through the children.

“Now if the children see one of their friends begging they will admonish him saying: ‘You shouldn’t beg, you should work. We are not as poor as that’. They tell each other to stand in line and wait their turn when receiving food, too. They are learning etiquette.”

It is all about changing communities, starting one child at a time.

“The parents are fixed in their ways, but the children can change and they can also change their parents All are equal in front of God. All religions teach good values. We have to respect all and not just look at external appearances. Basically, what I hope the children learn is to be good – don’t take what belongs to others, don’t destroy property, don’t beg or steal.”

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