Many countries in the world suffer from far-reaching wealth gaps that are affecting various sectors of society, such as children. These wealth gaps are giving rise to a growing number of street children looking for opportunities to save themselves from this poverty. This should not be happening.
One of the places where this is evident is in Indonesia. According to data from the International Labour Organization, in 2005, there were about 46,800 street children across 21 provinces in Indonesia. Not just this, but substantial numbers of street children are seen in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, and other major urban centers.
These children are also yearning to experience the life of other children living normally and yearning to gain access to education, computers, and the like.
This is alarming, and so companies like the Hewlett-Packard Company are making an effort to bridge this divide and end this problem once and for all. HP decided to take action and spearhead a project that aims to empower and educate these children, an untapped source of raw talent that, when utilized, can bring positive change.
HP partnered with a non-governmental organization Prestasi Junior Indonesia to establish a makeshift classroom under a highway bridge in Jakarta, particularly in the district of Tanjung Priok, where many of the city’s street children are. The company hosted a four-week curriculum that teaches these children how to code, and not just mere coding, but coding using only paper and ink. Sounds interesting? Here are more details about this news.
HP’s partner NGO, Prestasi Junior Indonesia, belongs to one of the largest youth-serving NGOs in the world, Junior Achievement Worldwide, which focuses on preparing the youth for employment and entrepreneurship. This NGO creates pathways for employability, job creation, and financial success by providing hands-on experiential learning in financial literacy, job readiness, and entrepreneurship education. Since 2014, Prestasi Junior Indonesia has already reached over 300,000 young people.
“I’m just a normal guy, but these street kids, they find it hard to find food, let alone a proper education. The kids who truly live their lives on the streets need to have grit to survive compared to someone like me,” Jakarta street artist Darbotz, one of the project’s proponents, said. “Together with my friends, we have created this project to help kids enter the digital world we all live in.”
Darbotz added that with HP’s participation in this project, it will help open the children’s eyes to the possibilities in the digital world.
A representative from Prestasi Junior, Utami Anita Herawati, said, “We want to give these young people the experience to help sharpen their critical thinking, logic, and creativity in these classes.”
The students were excited but admitted they were “a bit thrown off at the start.”
“I was a bit thrown off at the start,” said Pangeran Agil Karbela. “Is it possible to code with only paper?”
However, many of the students said they were mind-blown when they saw the results of this project.
This project is bound to get even more successful as Indonesia’s Ministry of Education has also already endorsed it, aiming for it to expand further to reach more children. The project will also be featured at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this June in France.
“If they can create the code for this with just paper and ink, imagine what the future holds for them,” added Darbotz.
