The children find their voice

Sun, 11/08/2009 2:10 PM  |  Lifestyle

When Maria Yustasiani Sule first joined the children's organization Sikka Children Forum (FAS), in East Nusa Tenggara four years ago, she was shy and quiet.

Now, the petite 16-year-old, whose friends call her Marlis, is the head of the organization and talks with confi dence about children's rights.

"I was shy and I couldn't speak when I first joined," she said. "After joining FAS I became brave and able to do public speaking."

She leads the organization with regular weekly meetings; she and the others in the forum have produced a wall bulletin, children's radio programs and a documentary video and are campaigning for children's rights.

Her friends in FAS also gained confidence from joining the organization.

Novita Marselina, 16, Paulinuse Bendu, 16, and Soluman A. R., 15, said the main thing they got out of joining FAS was the courage to speak up.

The children said being in the organization helped them to voice their opinions on problems that were happening in their lives and surroundings.

Last year, the children produced a short documentary video on beach erosion and malnutrition in Sikka after participating in a documentary-video workshop. The workshop was organized by Plan Indonesia, an NGO that focuses on children's rights.

Marlis said that they chose those two topics because they are a big problem in Sikka, as exemplifi ed in the coastal village they visited, Natawatu.

"In the village where we went *Natawatu* and interviewed people, the houses by the beach were ruined," she said.

"There are no breakwaters in the villages; we only have that in the city."

The coral reefs there also have been damaged, she added.

The children had their first experience of red tape and rejection from the local administration when they asked for data and interviews.

"It was very difficult to get hold of them," she said.

"They *local officials* said that the documentary was like emphasizing the ugly and that we wanted to show how their work performance was bad."

When they organized a screen-ing for the documentary, she added, only one person from the local administration showed up - and left in the middle of the screening.

"We were really disappointed," she said.

The teens finished the production in six months, juggling it with schoolwork and extra curricular activities, Marlis said.

She said that what they concluded from their research was that the disasters that occurred in Sikka were mostly due to human activities.

"We're just not aware of how important the environment is," she said.

FAS plans to make another documentary video for a competition run by TVone. "We're going to work on our beach erosion video and make it more in-depth," Marlis said.

The documentaries made by FAS are now in the Philippines, she added. "We share and trade documentaries, we have a video from the Philippines children, produced by themselves."

Marlis said that she felt that, through the documentary video, the children in FAS could help stand up for children whose rights have yet to be granted.

"And indirectly we are helping out by communicating about the conditions of Sikka's children," she said.

- Texts by Prodita Sabarini

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