While most families in Indonesia rely on neighbors as the closest people to help take care of funeral arrangements, other residents opt to be dependent on themselves on the back of concerns of an increasingly individualistic urban society.

Some have started to rely on funeral homes to take care of their future funerals.

Titin Novita, 45, is one such Individual. She recently applied for a prepaid funeral plan offered by the Bunga Kemboja Foundation, an organization that specializes in providing funeral services located in South Jakarta.

Under the program, Titin is required to pay a small amount of money every month in exchange for a funeral service when she passes away.

“I was asked to pay Rp 8,000 [57 US cents] every month. In return, the foundation will take care of all my funeral arrangements for free,” she told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The East Jakarta resident said she chose to join the program because she did not have relations with her neighbors.

“I don’t live in a close-knit community, so I could not rely on them to help take care of my funeral arrangements after I passed away. Besides, taking care of funeral is a lot of hassle. By joining this program, my family will only need to call the foundation if I pass away and the staff will take care of everything,” she said.

Titin explained she also registered her husband and two children with the prepaid funeral plan for convenience.

“We don’t know when death will come. It could come to us at any moment. I don’t want my family to think about money or paperwork for funeral arrangements if one of us passes away,” she added.

Meanwhile, another Jakartan, a 49-year-old civil servant named Yetri, said she had applied for the prepaid funeral plan 10 months ago because she did not want to cause inconvenience for her neighbors when she passed away.

“I was interested to join the plan after a friend who has applied for the program told me. We live in an increasingly individualistic society, even though I’m quite active in the community activities, I don’t want to be troublesome for my neighbors when my time comes,” she said.

Yetri even went as far as to register eight members of her family with the plan. She registered her husband, three children, parents, sister and her brother-in-law with the program.

“Death is a certainty; we just don’t know when it would come. So I want my family to be ready for it,” Yetri said.

She had paid the membership fees a year in advance as she was afraid that she would forget to pay the monthly fees amid her busy schedule. She explained that the membership would become void if participants fail to pay the fees two months in a row.

Theodorany Walandow, a staff member of the Bunga Kemboja Foundation, said currently there were about 120,000 Jakartan residents registered for the prepaid funeral plan with about 60,000 active members.

The foundation, she said, provided funeral services for Muslims and Christians only.

“For the Muslim members of the program we will provide shrouds, gravestones and rose water. We will also bathe the deceased, transport them to the cemeteries and perform prayers before burial. For the Christian members, we will provide caskets, gravestones, gloves, socks and transportation. However, we do not provide bathing services or makeup,” Theodorany told the Post, adding that the foundation did not provide the burial plot.

She said the members of the program are of various backgrounds and ages. “Most members of the programs are in their 50s. Younger people usually register their parents first before joining the program. We also have members who register their unborn babies for the program.”

Besides managing the prepaid funeral programs, Theodorany said, the foundation also provides free funeral services for unfortunate members of society.

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