Meeting Government Officials in Panjang

Today we had a bit of a breakthrough when we met the Chairman of Social Affairs in Panjang. He said that the government understands their limitations and he is very interested in working with 3 NGO’s to address the CSEC issue on a local level. He said it is possible to get the police and religious leaders involved. He stressed the need for economic development. He accepts positively the idea of community radio and if there is evidence that it is working he will add government funding. He mentioned a First Response access team that can be used to assist in withdrawal. He said he would write it into the municipal plan and put social workers on the program. He also said he will present to the major in the Parliament. He agreed to attend the launching of the program.

Chairman of social affairs.

Didid (Ashoka Fellow) that is the head of Exceed Program was very pleased with the meeting. It helps assure approval from local leaders and possibly more funding from National level, which would answer sustainability question.

That being said, there are many questions remaining about the program development, curriculum and oversight.

Brothel district is quiet due to Ramadan

Next we visited a brothel area in the harbor town in Harapon Beach. There are approximately 200 brothel houses managed by 60 pimps with 5-6 girls per house. Local leaders and neighborhood girls and boys accompanied us as we toured the village. The typical family in Harapon has 6-9 children plus parents, grandparents’ nieces and nephews all living together. One public toilet comprised of boards hanging out over the water serves about 60 households. There is no running water! The customers that come in from the big ships to visit the brothels are from America, India, Norway, Greece, Philippines, Jakarta, Australia and Singapore. Most of the male head of households are fisherman or work unloading the containers from the big ships.

Community toilet in Harapon

We then met with 6 workers from an NGO that focuses on child street workers, who are in pretty much universal agreement about the need for programs for the parents. The children are always subordinate, with no voice and frequently punished. Parent education and economic development are at the top of the list. They are interested in micro finance for women and girls.

We made a brief visit to a level 3 hospitals. Lowest level of hospital. One of the girls had a friend who came to Lampung for a job promotion and came down with Typhoid and Hepatitis A. He was trying to get transferred because the care is so poor.

Village head in Harapon who is trying to repopulate endagered species of turtle.

High School Visit

Today we started with a visit to a high school where we met with the headmaster and sat in on a class where Renvi from Save the Children was teaching 16-year-old boys and girls about Child Labor issues. There are approximately 700,000 hired domestic workers in Indonesia. The school is a technical high school, which does more training than “formal education.” The girls and boys from higher socioeconomic class go to more academic/formal high schools. Only 10% of the students are girls. All the students wear uniforms and half the girls are wearing the Muslim headscarves and covered from head to toe, sitting in a sweltering gym. No one is eating or drinking water from 6am-6pm because of Ramadan. We asked them about what they thought were the contributing factors to the high incident of child labor and their answers were very insightful.

Renvi instructing high school students in Lampung.

Our next two visits were with LADA and Child Crisis Center (3C’s). Lada provides counseling along with health and transitional education. At 3C’s we were joined by 14 people and discussed the high incident of pregnancy and the lack of reproductive health education. One of the counselors from 3C’s started the community radio concept in 2005. The program is called Voice of the City.
They also stressed the importance of finding economic development opportunities.

Lada visit. Partner NGO with Save the Children

The area we are visiting is pretty challenging with the traffic congestion and tremendous number of people on the roads. Street vendors are everywhere. One man was traveling on a motorcycle with a dead chicken dangling from one hand. I also saw a mom and dad and two children riding together on a motorcycle.

Meeting with Radio Pelangi

In the morning we met Rifty, Alfian and Redyson, the producers of Radio Pelangi, at our hotel. They discussed their vision for the radio station and were excited to show us the new studio space in Harapon. We were not sure what to expect but when wefirst walked in we were speechless. It is not a studio but a rented room in a local villagers home. It had bare concrete walls, a tin rusted roof with gapping holes and chickens and roosters running around in the yard. Their antenna was destroyed in a storm, which also shorted out all their electrical and they are now in the “rebuilding stage.” We talked through our budget and timeline but started to have concerns about their ability to launch the pilot by September.

Downed radio antenna following storm.

Girls in the community that expressed an interest in working on the project

Arrival in Jakarta

Junko and I met in the Jakarta airport and flew to Bandar Lampung, arriving at 1:25pm to begin our 10-days Indonesia experience. Fortunately we were met at the airport by Ekan and Didid from Save the Children and dropped at our hotel. After spending 2 minutes on the road, I knew that getting behind the wheel of a car after 2 days of travel was out of the question. There were cars, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, all sharing the road. As far as I could tell there were very few lane designations, traffic lights or helmets. It was orderly chaos but very different from the rules of the road in the US.

Junko had met Ekan and Didid on her last visit to Indonesia and they expressed a need for funding community radio programming to help eliminate commercial sex trafficking in their local communities.

We were excited to begin to meet  their partner  NGO’s that help make their work possible. But that would have to wait until tomorrow. It was time to check into our hotel, dinner, and sleep!