The raucous applause of some 400 street children filled the auditorium at Bulungan Sports Center, South Jakarta, when four child buskers mounted the stage.
Eleven-year-old Devi charmed everyone with her clear plangent voice while her friends strummed their guitars and beat out rhythms on a hand-held drum.
"Lagi, lagi," (encore) the audience chanted happily when they finished.
The pleased musicians smiled shyly, but soon started in on another song.
It was an unusual day for them as they had a proper stage. Streets and buses are their usual arena, with the clatter and bustle of busy Cakung streets in East Jakarta as their backdrop.
The buskers and their audience got the chance to enjoy themselves thanks to a mining company, which arranged the performance, distributed a children's book on mining for free during the event, and organized an evening meal to break the day's fast together.
Ramadan is truly a time when more organizations pay greater attention to underprivileged children, usually through donations and sponsoring meals to break the fast. For example, a religious boarding school (pesantren) in East Jakarta has been hosting a five-day program since Monday, another group celebrated the end of the fast with children incarcerated in Tangerang's juvenile prison on Wednesday, and some 250 orphans received meals from the city administration earlier this month.
Children attending the free-tuition Street Children School benefit from this trend. Five events have been lined up for them during Ramadan.
"We are thankful for the events. The children come from families with very little income so these events open their eyes to other things, and the food and presents make them very happy," headmaster Reinhard Hutabarat said.
Nonetheless, he said, such generosity peaked usually was popular only during the month and usually one-off. He feared that it did not come from genuine good intention.
"The helps are good, but as long as they are not used for political purpose or for certain party to get some one-sided benefits. From our experience, most of the time street children were used as the background of their publicity," he said.
He said most of the donators were individuals who came in touch with the school through events but most event-throwing companies did not have long term social engagement with the organization.
Despite being more popular charity month, some social organizations found donations come harder recently. The NGO for children Nanda Dian Nusantara, for example, had to reduce the scale and frequency of their annual short pesantren for street children.
"There are thousands of them but we can only accommodate 100 children. We wanted to do it for six days but only managed to get funding for five days," Roostien Ilyas, the chairman, said.
She also highlighted that the event was a molehill of a mountain of efforts should have been made for the street children.
"These children are very resilient. They spot any opportunity to earn money. They offer umbrella service when raining. They spread newspaper in mosques for small token for Friday prayers. What they really need is the training to be able to earn living normally," she said.
She urged the government to open up home schooling and to set up more vocational schools that produce *ready to work, not only ready to train' people.
"The streets are their home so schooling can be done at the streets too. The children can take the school equalization certificate later," she said.
Reinhard, who prefers to keep the kids off the street, said school did the trick by occupying the children's time and attention.
"When I set up the free school in 2001, the children came only when there were foods. Some parents were unhappy and threatened me because they wanted the children to work on the streets. Now the 107 students choose school to street because they want to study. The parents also become supportive," he said.
Drugs and cigarettes are also some problems yet addressed effectively by the government.
"They are bad for the children. The government should increase the levy to make them out of reach. The counseling for them should also be done carefully. Yet, considering so many things to be done for these kids, it is not the first priority in our agenda," Roostien said. (mri)
