TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Bandung schoolkids given chickens to get them off their phones
By giving the students the chickens to breed, he said, it would teach them how to care for animals and they would develop discipline through feeding the chickens before going to school and after school.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Nazrul Muhammad, a student from Cempaka Arum elementary school, showed the chicken he received from Bandung Mayor Oded M. Danial in the Bandung Planting event at the Gedebage retention pool, Bandung, Thursday (11/21/2019 ) (The Jakarta Post/Arya Dipa)
H
ow do we get children off their smartphones? Give them chickens, of course. At least that is the idea of Oded M. Danial, the mayor of Bandung, West Java. The policy, which he has named “chickenization”, is not aimed simply at weaning kids off their smartphones but also making them more responsible.
The policy involves handing out free 2,000 day-old chicks to students of two elementary and 10 junior high schools in Cibiru and Gedebage districts, Bandung.
The symbolic handover of the birds took place on Thursday to Nazril Muhammad Ibrahim, 11, a fifth grader at Cempaka Arum elementary school and to Rabil, 13, a student of SMP 54 state-run high school in Bandung on the sidelines of the Bandung Menanam I event in Rancabolang subdistrict, Gedebage.
“Chickenization is not simply aimed at getting kids away from their gadgets. It is part of the government's national program called the mental revolution,” Oded said.
By giving the students the chickens to breed, he said, it would teach them how to care for animals and they would develop discipline through feeding the chickens before going to school and after school.
The chicks given to the students were of a mixed-breed free range chicken called joper, the result of cross-breeding between free-range chickens and egg-producing hens. For the trial phase, Oded received the 2,000 birds through local lender BJB Bank's corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.
Oded said the chicken distribution was also in line with his administration’s program to reduce, separate and reuse garbage in Bandung. For example, leftover rice could be separated and used to feed the chickens.
