A ‘Father’ for School Dropouts

Nezatullah deftly drew the organizational chart of the Nara Kreatif Foundation on a whiteboard. The social part of the foundation, which took up the right side of the chart, comprised a school, dormitory, a scholarship program and business support

KOMPAS/SAIFUL RIJAL YUNUS

Nezatullah Ramadhan

"These children with amazing potential are waiting for someone to guide them. It’s not costly. You only need 180 kilograms of waste to send one child to school for a year," said Nezatullah Ramadhan, the founder of the Nara Kreatif Foundation. Through waste recycling, Nezatullah has helped hundreds of children with their education and taught them various life skills.

Nezatullah or Neza, 27, deftly drew the organizational chart of the Nara Kreatif Foundation on a whiteboard. The social part of the foundation, which took up the right side of the chart, comprised a school, dormitory, a scholarship program and business support. On the left side was the business part, comprising the foundation’s funding sources, namely a waste recycling program, a paper and plastic waste management program and corporate social responsible (CSR) support.

Outside of this, there was another social project called Terangi Indonesia. “Oh, and one more, I almost forgot. We are developing an online waste bank. People would bring their waste to our units and money would be automatically transferred into their accounts through an application. We will implement this soon in Kramat Jati district,” Neza said in Jakarta.

The online waste bank is his latest effort, along with friends, to become financially independent.

He said he was ready to launch the program, managed in cooperation with a software developing company. A portion of the profit will be allocated to fund his foundation’s social projects. Through the application, people can donate waste to cover children’s school fees.

Neza said he would continue his foundation’s waste recycling program. Children at the foundation make paper crafts, including invitation letters, stationery cases, wallpaper and placards. In cooperation with various companies, the foundation manages paper and plastic waste.

However, as these crafts are made to order and supplies of paper and plastic waste are irregular, it is often difficult to cover monthly expenses. This is despite the fact that only 180 kilograms of waste is needed to send a child to school for a year. It is not costly at all.

“Every month, the foundation spends Rp 80 million (US$5,370.65) on its programs. When we don’t have enough money, I sometimes use my own [money],” he said. “That is why we need innovations to support the foundation.”

Currently, the foundation takes care of more than 20 children. It provides them with a place to stay and a school. The children come not only from Jakarta, but also from other cities in Java and even Sumatra. Many come from poor families and are school dropouts. Some suffered domestic violence.

These days, the children go on with their daily lives at the foundation, which covers all of their needs, including their education.

Apart from the dozens of foster care children, the foundation also educates around 400 others. They live close to the foundation in Dukuh, Kramat Jati, East Jakarta. Some of them work for the city as public facility maintenance workers (PPSU).

Bitter past

Neza said he was a spoilt child. As the only child of well-to-do parents, he could enjoy anything he wished. Whatever he wanted, his parents would buy it for him. He went to the best schools in his childhood.

However, everything changed when he was in middle school. His parents’ business collapsed after they were conned by a partner. The family had to sell a television just to pay back debts.

“At the time, I experienced what it felt like to get help when you are down in life. Many people helped out. However, maybe because I was still a teenager, I did not think much of it,” Neza said.

KOMPAS/SAIFUL RIJAL YUNUS

Nezatullah Ramadhan

When he was in high school, Neza was a delinquent. He often bullied his richer friends into giving him their allowance money. Despite his delinquency, he was later accepted to the mechanical engineering department at the Jakarta State Polytechnic without test.

However, he remained lazy throughout college. At the end of his first semester, he was expelled after failing mathematics. His mother pleaded with his lecturer not to expel him, to no avail.

“The lecturer told my mother that I was stupid and that she should not force me to go to college. My mother was crying when she walked out of the lecturer’s office,” Neza reminisced.

Retaking enrollment test

The incident served as a bomb that exploded and tore down Neza’s fortress of childish comfort and self-image. He said he was offended but wanted to prove his worth. He saw the incident as a challenge to overcome and not to avoid. He wanted to re-enroll in the same department – this time by taking a test.

His hard work proved fruitful and he passed the test. Neza once again met up with the lecturer who had expelled him. After the two ignored each other for months, they finally became close again. In the end, they became even closer. “Her name is Ibu Indriyani. Now, she is like my own mother. Several times, she called me to give general lectures at my old campus,” Neza said, smiling.

Neza ended up doing so much more after being given a second chance at the college. In 2012, with two of his friends, he participated in a student entrepreneurship program. Their proposal won a funding grant of Rp 35 million. In the program, Neza and his friends worked with street children and dropouts to manage a waste recycling program. At the time, the program involved 15 street children.

This was the embryo for Nara Kreatif. After several months, Neza’s two friends decided to withdraw from managing the program after they could not secure more operational funding.

Neza persisted in finding ways to sustain the program. He said he felt that leaving the street children behind would be a mistake. While he was busy working on his thesis, he sold coconuts and keong tutut (a local snail dish) to fund the program.

He eventually got his parents involved in the program. “My mother pawned her ring to help me. She made meals for the children who needed to eat. My father watched them when I had classes.”

Finally, opportunities presented themselves one by one. In mid-2013, Nara Kreatif established a partnership with Bank BNI Syariah. Its products started attracting companies.

In the same year, he chose to focus his program on the children’s education. He established Kejar Paket A, B and C study equivalency programs. From only 30 participants in the first year, the program has now grown to include 500 children and adults.

He said seeing former dropouts with school certificates in their hands brought him nothing but happiness. Seven Nara Kreatif children are now pursuing college degrees on scholarships. Three are working at a private company. Some have established their own businesses with funding from Neza and his friends.

“Education and kind gestures are investments. I don’t know whether I have done enough or not. But, I am happy. I just want to be remembered as Neza who did something good,” he said.