Dear all,
I am sorry for having been silent quite a long time. I never had in my mind to be silent since I kept moving all the time between my neighborhood and other neglected areas, and time didnt seem to change in my life. On the other hand, my duties at Karta Pustaka needs a lot of attention since we have already started the cultural programs again after a two-month break due to the earthquake. Anyhow, I'd like to give a quick report to all of you who so kindheartedly and thoughtfully helped me and my neighborhood.
As I already reported last time, the next step is to give the people some sort of stimulating support or productive support in order to encourage them to start a new living soon. I thought about supporting the house rebuilding. As a matter of fact, there are complicated situation so that such a program has to be thouroughly discussed and planned to prevent misunderstanding or misuse. For this reason I always discuss the steps of action with the leaders of the neighborhood and some of my neighbors who voluntarily help me. We did survey to know the real condition of the people to help. These are what we found:
1. Some people did not live in their own houses. They rented the houses. (We surely cannot support such people to rebuild the house because it doesn't belong to them.)
2. Some other people have got support from their own relatives so that they can finance the rebuilding of their houses, or they still have their own money. (Such people do not need help from us.)
3. Some people are so greedy that they pretend to be poor and to really need help while they are absolutely able to finance their own houses by themselves. (Of course we will delete them from our list.)
4. There are people who really could not do anything for their houses since they do not have a single cent in their pocket. The house is their only valuable belonging. Due to the inability to rebuild their houses, they now live in the tents. (These are our targets)
5. The promises from the government to help the rebuilding of the houses (you might also know how beautiful the promise vowed by the vice President Jusuf Kalla is) will stay as promises. The reality is that these poor families have to live in the tents right in front of their ruined houses and are exhausted.
Many of them became suddenly jobless due to the earthquake. One of my neighbors is now jobless because the property business which he was involved in got bankrupt since the area they developed was in the earthquake lines. All the houses they built were totally damaged. His wife and children have to live now with her brother in another city so that their two children can go back to school.
Another neighbor also became jobless. His small ticketing business was also damaged. The computers were all broken, hit by the fallen roof. His house is 2/3 damaged so he can only stay in one room.
For those who can get the house support we have decided to make requirements as follow:
1. The family lives on a daily wage, such as becak (trycicle) drivers, the garbage man, the seller of cheap food, the laundry lady, etc. Or the family lives on very small salary which cannot totally support their lives such as elementary school teacher especially of a poor school, the janitor, etc.
2. The house is totally damaged and not yet rebuilt due to extreme lack of money.
3. The remains of the former house have to be selected and reused as their own share for their home.
4. The support is to stimulate them to work even harder in order to complete their house rebuilding. In this case they cannot fully depend on the donation.
By implementing such requirements, we can donate the money only for those who really need this help, and on the other hand, we still respect their pride.
Instead of spending the whole donation for rebuilding the houses, I think we have to also support the education for the children.
Many of the survivors have to spend quite a big amount of money (in comparison to their poverty) for their children's school fees and books because the new school year has just started. Meanwhile, with their economic condition it is impossible for them to support the children's education. I feel sorry if these children have to suffer twice, the loss of their homes and the imposssibility to go back to school.
If all of you do not mind, I will spend the donation also on these children especially to make it possible for them to go back to school. It will be a kind of one year scholarship by which we will pay the school fee for 1 year, or at least for 6 months/one semester. It is not as expensive as we thought. This will certainly help the family and bring back smiles and hopes in the eyes of the children. The similar requirements to get this support as for the house support will also be implemented.
I already paid the school fee for 2 students. The one is a junior high school student whose parents are social workers. Their house has to be demolished because all structures were broken. The other one is a talented student of the vocational school. She happened to win an animation competition. Her father is a traditional glass painter, and her mother sells cheap food. Their house was also totally damaged.
Meanwhile, I have already distributed 100 schoolbags plus school uniforms, writing books and pens for elementary school children (grade 1-6), and 60 schoolbags, pens and writing books for junior high school students (grade 7-9). They were very happy to receive those packages and so were their parents. The girls were very enthousiastic because there is a cute soft toy/doll on every single bag. They have never had such a lovely bag before! Those who studied at Islamic schools got Islamic uniforms. The poor parents were moved to tears when they got the school stuff, which they did not dare to think to buy.
I bought all those bags and uniforms at the big market, Beringharjo. The bag seller (I am sorry I couldn't remember his name, but I know the name of his kiosk, Eldy's) helped my very much on the size based on the grade of the pupils. When he knew that I bought those bags for the survivors, he suddenly gave me a discount of Rp. 10.000/bag as his charity. He himself has already been a volunteer for 10 days to help the survivors in Bantul, the most damaged area.
The school uniform seller is a woman, Ibu Sri. She helped me a lot to find the uniforms because the supply for uniforms could not meet the high demand. It was the beginning of the new school year. All children have to wear the new uniforms, while many uniform home industries were damaged due to the earthquake. And ibu Sri also gave me very good price for the same reason as the bag seller. I thank God for He made me able to meet these kindhearted sellers. I do appreciate them.
I got help from my neighbours especially those who suddenly became jobless. They thanked me for involving them, as such busy activities will help them to overcome their depression. One of them needs to consult a psychiatrist. I found one for him via my friend in the hospital. I even gave him money for paying the medicine he got from the psychiatrist. He is now better and still busy helping me doing the survey and also the distribution of the stuff.
On the 9th of July there was a special program for the children in my neighborhood. My friend, Tia, had a special school program for the children at Imogiri, another severely damaged area. She brought her children to my neighborhood. We call the program "Survivors visit survivors and let's make good friends!" There were 60 children from Imogiri and some adults to accompany them to meet 100 elementary school children in my neighborhood. They sang, they made performances. Butet Kartaredjasa, a well known actor, read a folk tale. The children watched his every movement and laughed and screamed in respond to Butet's acting. The adults also enjoyed Butet's performance since he is a popular actor in Yogya, and in Indonesia too. We had lunch together consisting of vegetable soup, a piece of crispy fried chicken, and a local orange. We ordered the lunch boxes from a caterer because our kitchens could not handle such an amount of food. They did enjoy the lunch! I believe that was the first tasty lunch they had after the earthquake. I still have their faces in my mind and it always moves me to tears when I remember it.
The caterer, Mrs. Dradjat Boediman, is one of the good caterers in Yogya whom I know very well because she often got orders from Karta Pustaka, my office. Her husband is a paediatrician and nutritionist. She gave me good advice for the lunch menu and she also gave me a much reduced price for the lunch boxes as her charity. It just reflects her name or her husband's name: Budiman, meaning kindhearted. I do thank God that there are always kindhearted people helping me and my neighborhood.
My position is really not easy especially as I always distribute support for my neighborhood. I don't want to be considered as a "Mother Theresa" by my neighborhood. I'd prefer to stay behind, and unknown as I used to be, as just an ordinary neighbor. Therefore I asked some other people to help me distributing the stuff. The neighborhood leaders and my neighbors can understand my difficult position. They agree to take over the distribution activities from me. They even will not mention my name. We agreed to use the name of the housing complex where I live as the source of the support. It is then called: support from Friends of Griya Karanganyar Asri Post. Now I can breathe easily! The other good news is that I now can sleep longer! ;-)
By the way, my house is still a shelter for 6 people. The other houses are mostly the same, dark, damaged, and empty.
It is all for now. I still want to send you my next updating report including the financial report on my next email. I will also send some pictures of the activities and also of the children, but the pictures have to be resized since they are so big that it would take a long time to download. Please give me time to prepare them.
Our warmest regards,
anggi minarni
on behalf of the whole neighborhood of RW 16, RW 17 and RW Wedhi Kengser
