School for Neglected Citizens
Singing on the street, scavenging and helping parents selling goods are the daily activity of participants of Sekolah Bingkai Jalanan (Roadside School).
Singing on the street, scavenging and helping parents selling goods are the daily activity of participants of Sekolah Bingkai Jalanan (Roadside School). Twice a week when the class is open, the routine is abandoned so they can return to their nature as children.
While carrying a projector with a sash over the shoulder, Amelia Dwi Putri, 24, was walking along a narrow alley a meter wide between the fence of Senen Station and rows of business units in Central Jakarta on Saturday. Amid the cluttered surroundings, there was a rented unit with two tightly closed rolling doors. In front of it, a number of children and mothers were waiting.
Amel opened one of the doors. There was a rack with books, blackboards, walls with colorful marks in the form of hands and five fans to cool the sultry air as the 6-square-meter room would be packed by dozens of children. Such is how Sekolah Bingkai Jalanan looks.
After counting, there were 33 children of various ages joining, from under-5 kids to youngsters. One by one, they entered the class after taking off their footwear.
“Come on, Neng [girl]. Where are the others?” Amel said to one of the children she met. This woman with a head scarf was one of the teaching volunteers on duty at Bingkai Jalanan that Saturday.
Lining up in the alley before lessons start has become a required tradition of the school’s participants. After counting, there were 33 children of various ages joining, from under-5 kids to youngsters. One by one, they entered the class after taking off their footwear.
Muhammad Arianto, 12, one of the students, voluntarily entered behind the others and first tidied up the sandals of his classmates.
Some of Arianto’s peers helped Amel spread mats and carpets. The class was held without tables and benches. With simple equipment yet high enthusiasm, the children paid attention to the subject prepared by Amel that day, this time about volcanoes.
The children come from disadvantaged families living in densely populated settlements and slum areas in Senen and its environs. Some of them are also used to spending the night on terraces.
Elsa Zaini Risma Aprilia, 11, for instance, goes to the scavenger’s stall owned by her parents near Kemayoran Station every day. She helps her mother clean plastic glasses scavenged by her father before they are sold.
During her spare time, the Kemayoran State Primary School 01 student reads workbooks or does homework assigned by her teacher.
In school, there was a math problem, the teacher asked who was going to solve it first. I went forward and gave the right answer
The student, who aspires to become a teacher, remembers having been taught fractions in Bingkai Jalanan’s class. Only three weeks later, she learned the subject in school.
“In school, there was a math problem, the teacher asked who was going to solve it first. I went forward and gave the right answer,” she said, smiling proudly.
Thanks to her perseverance, Elsa has been in the top three of her class, year after year.
Two siblings, Dinda Renjani Intan Elfariani, 11, and Natalia Oktaviana Sitanggang, 10, who usually sing at Senen Terminal and nearby areas, also feel the benefits of Bingkai Jalanan.
“When the lessons in school aren’t clearly understood, we can learn here,” said the older sister, Dinda.
Repaying ‘debts’
Bingkai Jalanan was set up by Hestiana Kiftia, 29, and Natalia Melake, 30, in December 2012 when they were university students. Hesti, as Hestiana is called, related that she and Natalia in 2008, as students of State Vocational High School 14, were conducting research for a paper. They were studying children aged 8-10 in Pulogadung, East Jakarta, who turn into bajing loncat (jumping squirrels, scrap metal thieves).
“We interviewed them, composed our paper and then joined a competition, which brought us to the national level [of the contest], with a presentation at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta,” Hesti said.
So, they opened a school for Bingkai Jalanan for street children in order to save their future.
Both of them secured scholarships to university after winning the contest.
So, they opened a school for Bingkai Jalanan for street children in order to save their future. As time went by, bajilo increasingly disappeared from the streets. Hesti and Natalia felt they still had to reach out to children living on the streets, though not in the Pulogadung area.
When Hesti was a student at Bung Karno University and Natalia at Indraprasta PGRI University, they founded Bingkai Jalanan for children at Senen Terminal and its surroundings.
“In the beginning, we opened a class under a tree, in front of GOR [Youth Sports Center] Senen,” said Hesti.
Starting with a coloring contest using boxes of milk as prizes, Hesti and Natalia later added singing Indonesia Raya and reading lessons. In addition to Hesti and Natalia, the school now has four teachers, including Amel. They’re all employees by profession, some even have a master’s degree from abroad.
In 2015, the class began to occupy a room rented at Rp700,000 (US$50.60) per month near Senen Station. Coupled with operational costs, the monthly expenditure for class activities is Rp1.5 million on average.
The figure is relatively small, but it demands sacrifice to ensure the fund’s availability. It’s because the main source of money comes from the volunteers’ “contributions”.
“We’re teaching without pay, still we need to share,” Hesti remarked with a laugh.
Starting with 15 students, Bingkai Jalanan today has 30-40 participants in each class, which are held every at from 6.30 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Previously, the participants
were generally street children without schooling, at present, they are mostly formal school students. However, they still need additional tutoring from Bingkai Jalanan.
With their low income, they can’t afford to pay fees for the children’s private lessons or instructional courses.
According to Hesti, the reason for this is that the majority of parents of Bingkai Jalanan children are less educated, so they are often unable to help their children with their school subjects. With their low income, they can’t afford to pay fees for the children’s private lessons or instructional courses. Bingkai Jalanan has become a place for free private lessons.
Sadly, the problem encountering Bingkai Jalanan participants is more complex than just understanding lessons in school. As children familiar with street life, they remain vulnerable to violence. Hesti gave an example of a girl who several times joined the class with a bruised face. On several occasions, cigarette burns marked the face of the child. She hid the fact by saying that her father had done it by accident.
It is as if they enter a wild jungle after they return home from school or after following Bingkai Jalanan’s class. This means that the school isn’t enough to solve the problems of children from disadvantaged families. An intervention is also needed.
The short-term action, including the provision of funds, isn’t sufficient yet to reflect concern. Instead of donating money, Hesti encourages wealthy residents to serve as foster parents of less fortunate children. More needs to be done to help disadvantaged families overcome the vulnerability of physical violence within families or their environment. This is the ultimate concern for those being neglected.