Making a Difference 

Philanthropy -- from the Greek words “philein”, to love or care, and “anthropos”, men, defines a desire to help humankind. For most of us, this concept usually translates into the occasional act of compassion, such as giving alms. For others, it becomes a life quest and gives true meaning to altruism and selflessness. Bhimanto Suwastoyo reports.

Sri Roosyati and Sri Irianingsih look like typical middle-class Jakarta housewives.

Sporting identical short orange tunics matched with pants just a shade darker, with neat hair and makeup and matching earrings, the 57-year-old identical twins would not be out of place strolling through one of Jakarta's myriad shopping malls.

But the two, better known simply as Rossy and Rian, have been the driving force behind the free education of more than 2,000 poor children from a slum in northern Jakarta.

Sixteen years ago, they set up the Sekolah Darurat Kartini, literally the Kartini emergency school. It occupies a makeshift facility in a dank space under an elevated tollway in Lodan, halfway between Jakarta's old Sunda Kelapa port and the sprawling Ancol recreation park.

And they have been toiling there every day since, teaching and overseeing the running of the school.

Uniforms, textbooks, school equipment and everything else needed to teach the children the skills to make their own living are paid for from their own pockets, including from a bank deposit left to them by their late mother. According to Rossy, the latter came with the specific instruction for its use "to help the needy."

Although it started by providing basic skills and teaching ethics, today the school has a full curriculum that not only prepares the students to pass the state examination for schooling equivalency, but also to start their own businesses. The women also have helped open similar schools in at least 64 areas of the country.

They are not alone in helping out the less fortunate and trying to make a difference.

Yati Maryati, better known as Ibu Slamet, has since 1993 taught street children and kids working at nearby Kramatjati market in her run-down neighborhood in East Jakarta.

The cheerful 60-year-old matron put everything she owned, including her meager life savings as the wife of an Army corporal, into building a one-room school on a rented plot of land near the market.

Some 120 children now attend the school, where they are taught to read and write as well as receive religious instruction over a few hours a day.

Most are young children who are already used to the hardship of eking out a living -- shoeshine boys, beggars, market porters, newspaper boys, onion peelers and the like. And despite the necessity to work to help their parents, attendance runs high, Maryati said.

Barely able to cover the school's monthly electricity and water bills by renting out some shacks built next to the school, she has had to enlist her husband, their five children as well as her in-laws to run the school at no pay.

Housewife Nia Yuniarsih, 29, also devotes two hours of each working day to teach children from poor families, aged between two and six years. But she is better known for her tireless efforts to educate her neighbors on the need for a healthy and clean environment.

By first approaching the women in Kampung Bulak, East Jakarta, and later persuading their husbands and children, Yuniarsih has been able to motivate residents to turn their slum into a neat, clean and plant-lined safe haven.

Each of the 43 houses in her neighborhood has two sets of waste bins -- one for organic waste and the other for inorganic materials. The organic waste is processed into compost to keep plants healthy; inorganic waste is sorted again to find reusable, recyclable goods.

Harini Wahono, energic and very lucid despite her 73 years, has also devoted countless hours since 1980 to turn her once ramshackle, packed neighborhood into a green oasis in South Jakarta.

She began by teaching local illiterate women how to read and write, and gradually spread to them her love of plants to regreen their neighborhood.

Her efforts drew the attention of UNICEF, which enlisted her as a motivator to promote household waste processing in her neighborhood.  She has since reaped countless awards for her environmental campaign.

Now, her days are full. Between maintaining her Education Corner next to her home, where people learn about integrated waste management, as well as about plants, she also visits other areas to discuss her efforts.

She said one of her most satisfying moments was when the South Jakarta mayoralty proposed her neighborhood as one of the city's tourist attractions in 2002.

What drove these individuals to devote their lives to helping others?

Many had the example of a socially conscious parent to follow; most have enjoyed the support of family members in the struggle to effect change. Most talk of a sense of “duty” in their activities.

For the twins, Rossy and Rian, compassion for others came from their family background.

Their father, a railway engineer, often took his young daughters with him when he went to teach illiterate men and women to read and write in Semarang, Central Java. He later instructed his daughters to help him in fighting illiteracy.

"Our father told us that it is our duty to help our fellow citizens to improve their lot. And education is a basic must to be able to live better," Rian said.

Rossy said they were lucky to have affluent husbands and now grown-up children, so that they can focus on teaching the children at their school.

"Of course it leaves you tired and sometimes we also come home still angry at what some of the children get up to. But the satisfaction derived from helping these children makes that all disappear," Rian said.

She complained that the government was not doing its best to help children from poor and disadvantaged families get proper schooling and life skills.

"If the government cannot be relied on, then why should we not help as best as we can?" Rossy asked.

The practical skills taught to the students allow them to seek a living on their own once they complete school, instead of joining the growing ranks of the country's jobless.

Rossy said simply that “the happiness of our children is our happiness”.

For Maryati, who has always been active in organizations at her husband's workplace and in their neighborhood, it was the wish to leave "something behind, no matter how insignificant, before I die," that prompted her to devote her time and money to poor children.

 "I couldn’t just sit still when I saw these children living almost with no control from their hard-working parents.”

She began by gradually persuading the children to come to her home to learn how to read and write. She later introduced instruction on religion and ethics.

"I don't know," she said, when asked what prompted her to help the children."Maybe, I just cannot stand spending my days just eating, sleeping, praying and watching TV."

Operating a school without regular funding has been a continual challenge for Maryati and her family, but she said that the "problems and worry vanish when I see the happy faces of my childre".

Maryati's son Frans, 38, who has been gradually taking over the reins from his mother at the school, said that many of the former students have been able to get decent jobs and no longer live on the streets.

"I am not looking for recognition from this world. I am looking for recognition from God," Maryati said.

For Yuniarsih, 29, her contribution to making a better environment was her "duty".

"The way I see it, it is the duty of us all, including me, to help people live better. If we won't do it, who else will?"

"If no one else want to deal with social issues, nothing will progress.”

And in between supervising efforts to keep her neighborhood clean, Yuniarsih still has time to do other beneficial activities.

She helps in the government's infant health program and is a volunteer teacher for infant education in her area.

"Everyone must take part to have a healthy environment," she said, adding that her husband Heri Purwanto, a worker in the private sector, gave her full control of her time. The small grocery store she runs from her home remains shuttered most of the time.

For Wahono, her love of plants and the environment, instilled by her father, an agricultural adviser, prodded her to action.

"From early on, my father taught us to care for the environment and for plants," she said.

Her path was strewn with obstacles in the early years; resistance to her ideas was so strong in the beginning that she admits that she often contemplated giving up.

Her persistence has paid off, with her example of selflessness widely recognized.

But she shrugs off the praise.

"I just help people appreciate nature and their environment," she said.

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