Light up their future! Help break the vicious circle! Grant the chance! You can make a difference!

Light up their future! Help break the vicious circle! Grant the chance! You can make a difference!

Grant the chance, Help break the vicious circle and Light up their future!

Let’s restore the balance in opportunities, in a world where some are given a lot more than others.

We are here to create that balance, all funds will help us creating schools, library's and shelter for the streetkids here in Yogyakarta.

Everybody knows the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger and bigger. I used to think I could do nothing about it,  for I am just a average 18 year old Dutch student. However, my vision on money completely changed since I began my internship in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Now I work with people who started with absolutely nothing and but already accomplished so much, just by caring and loving the children here in Yogyakarta. Rumah Impian or The dreamhouse,  is how they call themselves, give the children with absolute zero future love, care, and most important, decent education.

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Take one example, this little girl called Laras. Every afternoon at the busy Sagan crossroads, this nine year old girl can be seen dancing before the motorist who are waiting for the traffic lights to turn green. Dancing a traditional Javanese dance called Jathilan, the little girl is hoping for small changes from the motorists.

Laras is still at school. She is now in the 3rd grade. Every day after school, when her friends go home and play, Laras begins her activity at the busy crossroads. “Sometimes I don’t want to do it. But if I don’t, how can my family live?” Laras told me one day.

Laras is the oldest in her family. Her only brother is only five years old. His father does not have a regular job, and her mother spends more time with her younger brother than do anything that can make any money. They all live in a small hut built from cartons, bamboos, and used banners.

Often Laras has to watch her parents fight over who should provide for the family. Sometimes together with her mother and brother, she has to flee from her father’s violent behaviour. “Dad likes to hit mom and me. He loves my little brother, but not us, the girls.” Said Laras again.

Laras seems to have adapt well with the violence that she witnesses. Many times I find her in a gloomy face when I come to meet her. But still, she always perform the "jathilan" dance, to earn for the family.

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Education has become too expensive for many families in Yogyakarta, however Rumah Impian managed to work together with local schools to provide great education for many children. Rumah Impian reaches out to them through a program called “street contact”, where volunteers visit the children on the streets and their families to encourage the children to return to school as a way to gain better future for them.

When these children and their family agree to return to school, Rumah Impian provide scholarship and a boarding house for them to stay until they finish their education at the high school level. There are now 15 children from age 8 – 17 who stay in the boarding house called “Hope Shelter”.

Rumah Impian’s vision is to transform street children into loving, caring and independent people. So each child is given oppurtunity to develop his/her talent to the maximum potent. Rumah Impian has helped a boy join a big footbal team in Yogya, and there are also some girls with music talents, who are given oppurtunity to follow music classes and perform in some music shows in Yogyakarta, and one boy has started a career as a chef in a cruise ship after finishing his education with the help of Rumah Impian.

Other programs that we do is hold events with the children as the main subject. In 2013 we held “I Can!”, a music and dance show where the children performed their singing and dancing talents together with professional musicians and dancers. In 2014, we held an entrepreneurship festival entitled “Light up your future!”. This is an event where the older children (age 15-17) attended workshops by business professionals about how to start and run small business. The children were taken on field trips to creative industries and listen to inspiring stories from bussiness people, to encourage them that they can also succeed if they try. This event started in October 2014, and in 2 months they were trained and helped to start a small business. In December, the products of their small bussinesses were exhibited and marketed in a bazaar. Some of them did great! Starting small business in chocolates, casava donuts, and t-shirts, and they are still running it!

Its great to see the progress these children has made. They came in having nothing and now they are aiming to finish high school!

However, the work is not done yet. In general things are going downhill for many children in Indonesia. Some families are struggling so hard in poverty that they rather send their children to beg in the streets out of desperation than to send them to school.  It is also getting worse as the goverment decided that they want to get rid of all the beggars in the street, with new law that criminalize whoever begging and giving beggars money. There is a huge fine, and if not paid they are put in prison, a place where real drama starts. Imagine children with hidden talents, are being put in the same room with hardcore criminal gang members.

Rumah Impian needs to continue the work. As a matter of fact, we will work until there is nothing more we can do. Our plan is to get more street children back in school and to prevent vulnerable children from poor families to go begging in the streets. To do that we need to provide another “hope shelter” boarding house, and establish learning centers in areas in Yogyakarta where many vulnerable children come from, and to think big, to expand the work of Rumah Impian to other big cities in Indonesia.

We hope you agree that the situation of these children is very undesirable.

These children deserve education and just a chance for a better life. If you agree with us, you can join us to help them. How? By donating! With as little as 50 euro, you can help a child goes to high school in school for half a year, and a child in an elementary school for a whole year!

Every donation helps. Over my time here, I have learned that money is worth way more if it is put in the right place. If you are like us, and think that every child could make it if they are giving a chance with alot of love and support, then please donate, or help us share the project.

Terima kasih

Thank you