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Jakarta Post

NGO helps ex-inmates find jobs

Lilis Putri Ayu, a 33-year-old barista brewed a cup of coffee at the Jeera Pascorner coffee shop located next to Cipinang Penitentiary in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, for a customer

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Wed, March 11, 2020

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NGO helps ex-inmates find jobs

L

span>Lilis Putri Ayu, a 33-year-old barista brewed a cup of coffee at the Jeera Pascorner coffee shop located next to Cipinang Penitentiary in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, for a customer. Nothing extraordinary except that Jeera Pascorner is staffed by two former convicts.

Lilis served a jail term at Pondok Bambu Women's Penitentiary in Duren Sawit, also in East Jakarta, until she was released in 2016.

In May 2017, she joined a barista-training program run by the Jeera Foundation, which focuses on helping former inmates to develop skills and creativity and she started working at Jeera Pascorner five months later.

"I joined the program because I always loved coffee," Lilis, who lives in Senen in Central Jakarta, said on Monday. "I got educational and social benefits from the foundation."

Lilis is an example of more than 100 former inmates who have found jobs after taking part in a Jeera Foundation training program. However, some inmates find it hard to return to their communities after their jail time.

"Many of my friends have yet to get jobs,” Lilis said. “They are embarrassed to admit they are ex-convicts. They also do not want to join the foundation because they think the salaries are low.”

The program is designed to help not only with ex-offenders’ reentry into society and prevent them reoffending, but also to solve overcrowding in prisons, according to Jeera Foundation, which was established at the Cipinang Penitentiary in 2016 by former inmates.

Jakarta has eight penitentiaries and detention centers that jointly hold 18,531 inmates, greatly exceeding the total capacity of 5,791 prisoners, according to data from the Law and Human Rights Ministry's Correctional Facilities Directorate General, an overcrowding rate of 320 percent.

Jeera Foundation offers barista-training courses for inmates at the Cipinang Penitentiary by providing a café as a learning facility inside the penitentiary.

The program consists not only of training in coffee-brewing, but also in leadership, management, marketing and attitude mentoring, according to Jeera Foundation business strategy manager Achmad Choirudin. It bars former inmates joining the program from using drugs.

It also offers training programs on leatherwork, hand painting and baking.

"Jeera Foundation sees that many inmates have a variety of potential skills, either in music, cuisine or leatherworking. We are trying to accommodate this potential," said Choirudin, who joined the foundation in 2017 and oversees the operations of its cafés.

"We want to build a social-economic ecosystem for them."

It also organizes various training programs at 29 penitentiaries nationwide, where prisons and detention centers continue to endure overcrowding. Overcrowding is a major catalyst for trouble in prisons, including in a number of previous jail riots.

In addition to Jeera Pascorner, the foundation runs another coffee shop called Join x Jeera Coffee House in Kota Tua in West Jakarta. Established in 2018, it currently employs a team of four former inmates.

One of its baristas, 32-year-old Muhammad "Ahmad" Nur, joined Jeera Foundation's training program while serving his sentence for drug-related offenses in 2018. After he was released, he started his barista career at Join x Jeera Coffee House.

In the program Ahmad trained for over a month and he went straight to the coffee shop after his release, helping him escape the vicious cycle of drug addiction. Prior to his most recent jail time, he served another drug sentence from 2008 to 2010.

He is now in charge of advanced training for beginner baristas at the coffee shop.

Ahmad, who moved to Jakarta from Semarang, Central Java, when he was a third-grader, decided to join the foundation's program out of desperation.

He said prejudice against inmates and hiring ex-prisoners was common in society, making it harder for them to get work.

The knowledge he gained from the training might be worthwhile in starting his own business, Ahmad said.

His friend, an ex-convict and a former trainee of the foundation's program, now runs his own small coffeehouse, employing six people and earning up to Rp 5 million (US$349) a day.

"My past is past," Ahmad said. "Now I have an activity from which I make a living. I can now get over my past activities." (dfr)

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