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Empowering underprivileged children with beauty skills
Hertauli Harianja provides beauty classes for children in poverty to help them achieve a brighter future.
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Brighter future: In the span of five years, Zoe Beauty School has taught almost 200 students. At least 30 percent of them are underprivileged girls whom Hertauli supported to help them achieve a better future. (Courtesy of Hertauli Harianja) (Courtesy of Hertauli Harianja/Courtesy of Hertauli Harianja)
Hertauli Harianja provides beauty classes for children in poverty to help them achieve a brighter future.
For many underprivileged children, education is still far from accessible. In Medan, Hertauli Harianja tries to be part of the solution by providing access to education in beauty skills.
“There are many unlucky children out there whose futures are in threat of being lost if no one cares about them,” the 37-year-old woman told The Jakarta Post in mid-May.
Extreme poverty makes it impossible for Indonesian children to access a decent life and education. According to the UNICEF report, “COVID-19 and children in Indonesia” released in May 2020, as much as 10 percent of Indonesia's population lived in extreme poverty in 2019. In the same month, that percentage increased to 13 percent in children and adolescents.
The report also notes that nine out of every 10 children are deprived of at least one dimension of child welfare: access to education, housing, food, water, sanitation and child protection.
Hertauli notices this situation happening right around her, not only in big cities but also in rural areas. She sees firsthand how children from villages, who are unable to continue their education, are forced to leave their hometowns and look for opportunities as migrant workers. There are also some children in the city who are forced to become scavengers and take to the streets.
“I experienced it myself in 2013. There was a girl from my hometown who dropped out of school and tried to become a migrant worker. I tried to stop her and advised her to take salon courses. Now she is working at a salon and makes a living from that job," she said.
