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stall operated by street children in an exhibition at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) in Central Jakarta has attracted many visitors, as it displays a number of handicrafts depicting famous cartoon characters, such as Shaun the Sheep, Dora the Explorer, Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan.

'€œStreet children have made these handicrafts by recycling waste paper,'€ one of the stall'€™s attendants, undergraduate Ricky Nurseptian Pratama, 19, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He said the street children, under the coordination of the Narakreatif foundation, produced the handicrafts at its headquarters in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, where used paper was processed and recycled into various creative products, such as wallpaper, stationery, paper bags, certificates, drop boxes and wedding kits.

Narakreatif founder Nezatullah Ramadhan, 23, said not all creative products were made by educated people, but by street children, whom he had helped to empower with a year'€™s training course.

He said that before being helped by his foundation, the children spent most of their time on the streets singing and begging when they were unable to continue their studies, coming as they did from low-income families.

'€œThey [street children] could not become independent by begging and singing on the streets. So I persuaded them to come to my house to learn how to process and recycle waste paper into valuable products,'€ he said.

He added that his idea of recycling waste paper first came to him in 2012, when he was studying at the Jakarta State Polytechnic in Depok, West Java. Studying in the machine department, his lecturer assigned him to invent a machine as a requirement for graduation.

'€œI thought so hard about what kind of machine would benefit society. I suddenly got an idea to make a machine that could process used paper into pulp,'€ he said.

He said that after inventing the machine, he found he could make valuable products from pulp. With a strong spirit of empowerment, he established Narakreatif on Jan. 31, 2013, and invited people to join.

To fully realize his ideas, he obtained financial support from state-owned lender Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).

He established in September last year free education programs at various levels, namely Kejar Paket A, equivalent to elementary school; Kejar Paket B, equivalent to junior high school, and Kejar Paket C, equivalent to senior high school.

'€œAll 15 teachers at my foundation are university students who work voluntarily,'€ he said, adding that his pupils totaled 90.

He said all the pupils came from low-income families. Some of them were street children who visited his house every day to help him recycle waste paper. Some of the others worked in the informal sector as, among other things, household helpers and office boys.

'€œAfter working all day, they [those working in the informal sector] come to my house to participate in the Kejar Paket programs,'€ he said.

He said that he financed the Kejar Paket programs from the money he earned from selling the products made by the street children.

'€œWe did not look for sponsors to establish this foundation or to finance the Kejar Paket programs. We work independently by making the products from waste paper and selling them to people,'€ he said.

He said food company PT Nutrifood Indonesia helped him by supplying his foundation with waste paper every month. The company, he said, was happy to supply the paper, as he, along with the street children, helped to protect the environment by recycling trash and turning it into saleable products, such as handicrafts, stationery and souvenirs. (alz)