UQ in Indonesia:
Children of the Landfill
Jakarta is home to over 450,000 trash pickers.
Trash pickers, or Pemulung as they’re known in Indonesia, live on and around overflowing landfills and dump sites, searching through the masses of unsorted rubbish that flows from the mega-city that is Jakarta. For the families that live here, it’s a struggle to earn enough money for food, let alone send their children to school.
Lack of education and opportunity means that many of these children become trapped in a generational cycle of poverty and trash picking.
Parents are often forced to ask their children to help pick trash so they can earn a living, ultimately cementing their children in a future of poverty and trash picking.
Organisations like XSProject, The Kingdom of Bantar Gebang and Yayasan Dinamika Indonesia are working hard to break this generational cycle, and ensure that the children of the landfill are able to dream of a future beyond waste.
Retno Hapsari & XSProject
The Silhouette of a young Indonesian boy, Apin, is contrasted against the white bags of sorted rubbish collected from the Cirendeu open garbage dump, where more than 500 men, women and children live.
Retno Hapsari is a beautifully energetic woman who can light up a room with one smile. She is captivating, endearing, and most importantly, she is committed to making change for Jakarta's underprivileged and the overwhelming rubbish problem that plagues the city.
Hapsari is the manager of the Jakarta-based XSProject, a non profit organisation that strives to improve the lives of trash pickers and their families by providing critical necessities such as education and healthcare.
Four primary principles drive the organisation: addressing environmental problems, improving the livelihoods of the families living in trash-picking communities, innovative design and education.
XSproject buys non recyclable products from the trash picker community living on the Cirendeu open garbage dump. They transform this waste into hand made products to raise funds for the community and simultaneously raise awareness for environmental problems facing Jakarta.
Resa Boenard & The Kingdom of BGBJ
Dini Syahiezl looking at the homes built along the landfill she calls home, from top of one of Bantar Gebang's countless trash mountains
When you live amongst towering mountains of decomposing waste, one man’s trash can become another man’s means of survival. Bantar Gebang is the largest uncovered landfill site in Southeast Asia, serving as the dumping grounds for Jakarta’s vast pools of waste and home to over an estimated 3000 trash picker families.
Resa Boenard is an exceptional woman who grew up as one of Bantar Gebang's children. Brought to the area when she was just 10 months old, Resa beat the odds and attended secondary school, completing her studies despite being bullied for living on a landfill.
Resa felt compelled to return to her home on the dump, and now dedicates her time to helping the families and children that call Bantar Gebang home. Resa re-named the landfill ‘The Kingdom of Bantar Gebang' or 'BGBJ' which translates to "The Seeds of Bantar Gebang". Along with British co-founder John Devlin, the duo believe that Bantar Gebang's children are like seeds, and with support they can gain an education and find a life outside of Bantar Gebang.
BGBJ has become a hub/hostel that encourages people from all walks of life to visit and volunteer, helping run a number of activities and projects for the children. Classes are based on topics, such as English, IT, health and nutrition, sports, music and art.
BGBJ is located on the landfill site, and was built with the help, support and dedication of its visitors and hostel guests. By providing education, training, food and assistance, BGBJ aims to break the generational cycle of poverty and equip these kids with the tools and knowledge to break free from Bantar Gebang.
Dini Syahiezl looking at the homes built along the landfill she calls home, from top of one of Bantar Gebang's countless trash mountains
The School on a Landfill: Yayasan Dinamika Indonesia
Located in Bekasi, Bantar Gebang is the largest landfill waste site in Indonesia, with roughly 600 trucks offloading 5,000 tonnes of rubbish every day.
Attached to Bantar Gebang is Yayasan Dinamika Indonesia, a primary school filled with trash picker children from the surrounding landfill. The principle, Nasrudin, says that most of the children in his school are still helping their parents pick up trash between classes.
“Most children are still helping their parents pick up trash, in our school, the biggest percentage of children that drop out is in the second and third grade.” he says.
Nasrudin also added that the kids find it hard to integrate into state schools after leaving Yayasan Dinamika Indonesia, as certain stigmas can be attached to the children from Bantar Gebang.
Nasrudin has been with the school since it first started as a study group in 1995.
The school has an open door policy and flexible rules to keep its students in class, even letting the kids sleep if they need to.
First impressions: Finding beauty beneath the haze
“Turn right for good photos”.
Clearly an invitation not to be missed by three aspiring journalists. It’s now somewhat apparent that the fat black cameras hanging from our necks were much less discrete than we once thought. Nevertheless, eager to break free of our hotel walls, we follow in hot pursuit, the passing breath of a stranger.
Nestled in West Java’s Depok, a maze of markets line the small stream beneath the haze of our hotel. Cats and rats, chickens and chili, we push forward through a twisted and slightly damp path, down the main strip, past chicken heads and quail eggs.
Throughout our journey we are welcomed with a bright and bubbly “bule!” which means “foreigner”, a smile stretched from ear to ear and a camera phone ready for another “Selfie! Selfie!”. Depok is bustling with traffic and vibrant with colour but perhaps what is most enchanting about this place is the bold and inviting locals that fill its streets.
Men and women shout “Picture! Picture!” with a friendly curiosity to learn about where we come from and where we’re heading. They weren’t trying to sell us their spices and herbs, instead just hoping to gain a photo with the obscure and elusive ‘bule’ lurking their corridors.
The people of Depok are bright, bold and harbour a love for foreigners that is not only welcoming, but inspiring.
Although I left without any chili or chicken feet, I was lucky to walk from that market with a new perspective and a few extra sweat patches.
