Rachel Panjaitan with some of her students.

My Jakarta: Rachel Panjaitan

Every Sunday, Rachel Panjaitan gives back. From 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. beneath an overpass in Grogol, West Jakarta, Rachel and about 25 other Sahabat Anak [A Child’s Best Friend] volunteers roll out a blue tarp and tutor 100 school-age children in everything from science and math to English and Indonesian. But Sahabat Anak isn’t about showering these kids in pity; it’s about instilling self-worth and a feeling of accomplishment that encourages them to stop weaving through traffic strumming guitars and instead shine in the classroom.

Sahabat Anak isn’t just in Grogol, there are other volunteer branches, right?

There are seven other places throughout the city where you can volunteer. I just go to Grogol. There’s also Prumpung, Mangga Dua, Cijantung, Senen, Gambir, Manggarai and Tahan Abang.

How many volunteers do you have at the Grogol overpass?

We have about 25 volunteers who are there every week, but people come and go. We have about 100 kids, from 3 year olds all the way up to 19 — some kids are still finishing school.

How do people find out about the activities? You don’t exactly recruit volunteers.

No, a lot of our volunteers come to Sahabat Anak via word-of-mouth marketing — friends of friends. But people hear about the organization all kinds of ways. I used to chair the student body at my university and I was attending an event at Tarumanegara University when I saw a Sahabat Anak calender on campus.

Sahabat Anak is a pretty unique volunteer organization.

The nature of it is more about empowering these kids, not simply showing them with pity, but giving them hope, courage and a chance to grow and get themselves out of their current situation. At Sahabat Anak, all the volunteers want to help you help the kids.

As a volunteer what do you take away from it all?

The kids keep reminding me of how privileged I am compared to them, and it makes me realize how important it is to maximize my potential. It makes every experience I have more valuable.

And the fact that I can simply be there to help them create a better future makes my existence more meaningful.

Grogol is different — they think of each other as a “family,” so the bigger kids ask the younger kids to join them in getting high on “ngelem” [a type of glue], which is very dangerous. Sahabat Anak gives them options; to feel loved without joining this “gang” and make sure that they can get off the street.

What is your favorite subject to teach?

There’s no specific class or subject that I love the most. But I love being able to challenge their critical thinking through different activities. Last week, I asked them to go and observe the other classes and see who was the best student in each class and who was the worst — and why. That way they differentiate by themselves between what’s good and what’s bad.

Another time, I asked them to interview volunteers — they call them kak [big brother or sister] — about their jobs so they would know that they can be other things besides street musicians and prostitutes.

If people don’t have enough time to volunteer, are there other ways they can help?

Every few months we have a bazaar. People used to just donate clothes, but if we gave stuff away for free it would be chaotic. We also do it for toys, and at the beginning of every semester we sell stationery to the kids at a reduced price.

Or they can sponsor a kid by helping with school tuition fees, or donate money for our activities. A few times a year we take them on a study tour, to a zoo or to watch a movie in a theater.

What do volunteers teach?

Everything, but with the older kids we focus on all of the national test subjects, especially math. We want our kids to be able to pass those tests.

Are all the kids “street kids”?

This is the thing — people love free stuff, so yeah, there is a small number of kids who don’t beg or play music. We try to prioritize the street kids. Just because you don’t sleep under the overpass doesn’t mean you can’t come to the class. But if we opened the floodgates we wouldn’t have enough volunteers.

Something like that would have to be watched over, monitored. That’s a pretty big responsibility for a volunteer. There is a person in charge, or a PIC, and they recommend and monitor who can stay in the class.

Do you think that what you’re doing really makes a difference?

Yes, I feel positive about it. Rather than pretending as if nothing is wrong when I see a kid begging for money in the street and letting him become a thief or have the girls grow up to become prostitutes, I act upon it. I do something to prevent that.

Does it ever get frustrating?

Yeah, it’s not as easy as it looks. Especially when you have such high hopes for every kid. Like, we have this kid, Christmas — he didn’t have a name so we named him — we took him in and set him up at a “ rumah singgah ” (“drop-in shelter”), and sometimes he went out late and we couldn’t find him.

You feel guilty as well, and blame yourself for things that are out of your control.

Where does the money come from to help these kids?

We ask for donations for our programs, such as an upcoming camping trip in July. We also have scholarships. A PIC can recommend a kid for one of the scholarships we give out. We have 70 tuition scholarships for the kids in Grogol. To sponsor a kid, it’s Rp 1.2 million ($120) a year for elementary school, Rp 1.4 million for a kid in junior high and the kids in senior high need Rp 1.6 million.


Rachel Panjaitan was talking to Zack Petersen.

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