Our second stop on Friday were the twin villages of Gegerung Selatan (South) and Gegerung Puncak (Summit) where we met with over 90 eager young children
Our Gegerung Selatan welcoming committee
Many of the children had just returned from school or paut and kept streaming in while we were there. Unlike Lingsar village, the Gegerung village pauts are still highly dependent on assistance from Annisa for supplies and occasional contributions for volunteer teachers. Due to the villages’ poverty, most parents are also unable to pay the token Rp.3-5,000 monthly paut ‘fees’ (less than $1).
Handing out packages and salam-ing with young grils in Gegerung Puncak (left) and Gegerung Selatan (right)
For those students who do manage to make it through their paut, or kindergarten years, many struggle to make it to primary school. To help increase the likelihood of this happening Annisa provide ‘school packages’ whenever possible, including uniforms, school bags and shoes, as well as a helping hand to enrol children at the local primary school on behalf of their often-illiterate parents. This help is invaluable for those who receive it, but unfortunately Annisa’s funds can only go so far and there are still well over 100 young children in the Gegerung villages alone who don’t attend primary school because their parents can’t afford the basics they need to walk through the door. (With a complete school pack costing little more than $50AUD this is one project we’d love to help Annisa expand)
Siapa yang sekolah?! Siapa mau jadi anak pintar?!
(Who goes to school?! Who wants to be clever?!)
Our standard catch cry before looking through a school pack – guaranteed to get the kids warmed up and excited!
By far the biggest groups we met with over the two days, we ended up handing out 90 packs to Gegerung children on the day with another 50 to be delivered the following week by Annisa (which they were – by two determined ladies on the back of a motorbike, travelling up a very bumpy mountain path, packs in tow!)
Listening in on instructions on health packs at Gegerung Puncak
[video (hopefully!) coming soon]
Gegerung Puncak children sing the theme song of our visit, Balonku
The song teaches children colours and numbers (subtracting one when one of their balloons pops :-( ) and was a favourite at all villages when we asked the kids to sing us a song.
As in all the villages we visited, Gegerung’s poverty stems from the inability of families to find decent work. Most of the fathers of children we met work to break up large stones – while the work is back-breaking, it earns them little more than Rp.1,000 (about 12cents) for every bucket they fill, or around Rp.3-4,000 (50c) a day. Add in working on weekends and in theory this could mean earning up to Rp.120,000 (around $15) a month.
When the season is successful, some are also able to find casual labour as farmers, earning up to Rp.25,000 (just over $3) for each day of work. But the work is sporadic and the lack of income often leads men and women alike to trek out to the jungle where they sleep for up to a week, collecting wood to sell on the black market to help make ends meet back at home – something Annisa is striving to reduce.
Proud father in Gegerung Selatan showing off his sons new underware (left) and (right) a very happy grandmother heads home at Gegerung Puncak with a free box from the morning’s packages
In addition to school packs, with the help of Annisa, many mothers are now learning how to make seeds from the local coconut trees in to handy crafts to sell at the market. Annisa also have a number of programs focusing on health – including increasing awareness of basic hygiene and familiarizing locals with the often terrifying prospect of bringing very ill relatives to the far off city hospital. Through Annisa functional literacy groups, mothers also learn how to read and write, gain skills to start small businesses, and importantly, learn to appreciate education, thus becoming even more determined to make sure their own children go to school.
Some of the Gegerung Selatan children now attending paut or primary school, thanks to Annisa
