Big Brother

Phaerly Musady’s approach to dealing with children is a simple one: give them a voice. Trish Anderton hears from the young man with a mission.

Phaerly Musady's father had strict rules. School got out at 1 p.m., and Phaerly had to be home by 1:15 p.m., or he'd face a beating.

"I had two choices: go home punctually or don't go home," he recalls. One day, "there was a party at my school and I came home late. He hit me and pushed me away and slammed the door."

Phaerly was 13 and living in Bonn, Germany; his father is Indonesian but had a job there. Phaerly figured churches must be open all the time, like mosques, so he went to his neighborhood church. It was locked.

"It was 11 degrees or 19 degrees or something, I don't know, but it was cold as hell."

He spent the night there, in front of the church door, using his shoe for a pillow.

Now 31 and living in Bandung, Phaerly is quick to point out that his two days on the streets in Bonn are "nothing compared to what Indonesian children experience" in his neighborhood and in many big cities here: living on the street, exploited by gangs, sniffing glue and begging for money at intersections.

Still, his upbringing has inspired him to try to improve the lives of kids in his neighborhood. "Those violent things should not happen," he says. "I disagree with what happened to me and my sisters and brothers."

In 2001 Phaerly dropped out of college to launch a foundation called AdiKakak, or Big Brother. He now admits this was something of a tactical error: "It's a mistake to start a foundation if you don't have money!"

At first he organized drug interventions at schools. He would put some friends, guitars, drums and amps in a beat-up old pickup truck and show up five minutes before the last bell. When the kids ran out to see who was spewing feedback-laden guitar chords in front of their school, he'd give out homemade stickers with anti-drug slogans.

"Be Aggressive, Don't be Stupid, stuff like that," he explains. "People respect that."

He saw a need for a group to reach out to kids in their own language. A lot of NGOs, he says, "really understand the problems of youth, they understand about drugs, but I feel they don't know about the culture.

"We have our music, we have our lifestyle, we have our fashion. The young children look up to that."

Phaerly launched a baby-clothing company called Parental Advisory to support his family and his social work. The shirts sport in-your-face slogans like "I Cry Because You're Ugly" and "I Fall Down Simply to Learn How to Get Up".

Phaerly says it's all in keeping with the punk esthetic. "What I understand about punk is the do-it-yourself thing. My clothing, my business, the networking, we're just a big community. We're trying to survive with our own abilities, without relying on others."

With the clothing income, he's building a playground in front of his office in Bandung, in a neighborhood he calls "very crime-friendly". He's collected skateboards and trained a handful of older kids to be instructors.

Kids who want to skate have to follow the rules: no littering, wait your turn, no swearing. Those who misbehave might have to do push-ups; worst of all, they could have their skating privileges temporarily revoked.

Phaerly says about 30 children from all income brackets use the park. He's not expecting miraculous transformations, but he says he's seen small changes in their behavior.

"In my front yard is a bakso (meatball) seller," he says. "And the people who buy are very messy, they litter. Now the kids pick it up. In the past they littered; now they're picking it up. That's something for street children."

Phaerly has launched a second campaign, this one aimed at adults. It's called "Never Grow Up", and it encourages parents to play with their children for 15 minutes a day.

"Eveyone here is in Indonesia is busy searching for money and busy with television. It's not interesting to play with children because it's hard to talk to them. They're talking about some SpongeBob thing or some monkey with boots. Who's interested in that?" he laughs. "I think we have to force ourselves to play. OK, you don't like it, pretend you like it!

"If you want children to listen to you, you have to listen to them first."

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