November 25, 2014

Dear Friends,

I felt so honored to have my story telling session at a scavengers' children elementary school called "Sekolah Kami" or Our School. This opportunity to get to know these children, their teachers and the founder of the school was really humbling for my team and I.
This school is located in Bintara Jaya IV Dalam, West Bekasi. It's not easy to find this school since it's located in a rather secluded area where 400 scavenger families live. But finally, we managed to find it.
What a surprise! When we walked into the compound, it was clean and green! There were several bamboo and wood made buildings inside to host classrooms as well as a Javanese traditional Joglo style house for performances and large meeting. Sets of traditional West Javanese traditional music instruments angklung were there, accompanied by modern drum and bass guitar. While waiting for the children to gather, we were entertained by the school's talented musicians, playing fusion music of traditional music with a touch of modern beats. So COOL!
Established around 14 years ago by a dedicated doctor, dr. Irina Amongpradja, this school has been moving around several locations. Its founders also shared her experiences dealing with the reality of scavengers' children like insecure family setting, early pregnancy, lack of willingness to move out of scavenging life style, etc.
With the support from my dear friend, Aunty Suzan and her wonderful family, we brought the children 125 sets of pencil colors and 125 Didgit Cobbleheart's coloring books. Another supportive friend, a company called Kalbe, provided its products (milk and snacks) to these kids. Thanks to them, the children were really happy. They drank milk and ate snacks while listening to Kak Nana's story from my first book, "The Tale of Didgit Cobbleheart and His Fingers." The spirit was high in the room. The children's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, and to our surprise... they could sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" song in good English!
The picture was gloomy and not optimistic for many of these scavengers' children, but dr. Irina prevailed and continued her works with them despite all the challenges. I hope that her persistence and dedication can be good example for everyone, including me. Doing good things are never easy, but it is a necessity to make a better world for everyone. Every time I have wonderful experiences like this one, I am more optimistic that our world can be a better place for every child.

Yours truly,
Didgit