Children’s library abuzz with activity

The Jakarta Post, Tuesday, March 28, 2006

For many young people, a library, as perfectly put by one author, is nothing more than a tomb for books.

“I even know some university students who are library-phobic — believe it or not — so much so that they go with whatever their lecturers tell them and never look for further references,” said Gola Gong, the pen name of Heri Hendrayana Haris, who is noted for his work of fiction Balada Si Roy (The Ballad of Roy).

“Enliven the library with activities,” he told a recent seminar.

A librarian at a state senior high school in Cilegon, West Java, commented that her efforts — putting comfortable sofas and beanbags in the school library — did not have the desired effect.

“Students just used them to take a nap between lessons,” she told the seminar.

It is not enough for a library to have comfortable chairs, Kompas Information Center manager Sintha Ratnawati responded, it was more important to have literary-based activities to encourage interest in the library.

“Depending on the target audience, various activities can be created based on the available material, such as storytelling, watching documentaries and other films, book discussions, ‘meet the author’, and writing courses,” she said.

Activities based on articles taken from daily newspapers and tabloids, for example, range from sentence-making exercises to spotting new vocabulary. The news can be used as a starting place in storytelling, a geography lesson or a crossword puzzle.

“Newspapers and tabloids are good sources of activity because they present a wide range of subjects — crime, education, health, food — that are up to date, and presented in a variety of formats such as articles, photos and tables,” Sintha explained.

At Gola Gong’s Rumah Dunia (House of the World) activity center in Serang, Banten, children are not only invited to come and enjoy its more than 4,000 books, but to engage in a number of activities.

“Rumah Dunia started out as my own private library, but now I like to call it a community activity center, where reading is but one of many activities,” Gola Gong said.

On Mondays, Rumah Dunia invites visitors to explore the world of books and storytelling, while on Tuesdays, it holds an outdoor drawing class, which is called a tour to increase its appeal to children.

“Drawing tours are one of our most popular activities for children, we get about 50 to 60 children a week,” Gola Gong said.

Wednesdays and Thursdays are set aside for composing stories or poems about daily activities, parents, the home, school, or anything else that interests the child.

The seven-by-five-square-meter stage at Rumah Dunia — located on a one-square-kilometer orchard — is the place to be on Fridays, with children and visitors exploring the theater, while on Saturdays they are invited to express themselves through words or dance.

“Every Sunday, we organize a writing workshop for students, teaching them about journalistic writing, fiction writing, and writing for television,” Gola Gong said, adding that some of the workshop’s graduates were now published authors.

“Librarians often forget their library is just a small part of society, and there are many other activities out there for children.

“They should be more creative by embracing these other activities and organizations, to help children take an interest in books and the library,” he said.

Special needs pupils left to struggle alone

The Jakarta Post, Monday, March 27, 2006

Eighteen-year-old Riqo wants to be an IT expert. He spends most of his spare time browsing the Internet for programming scripts to improve his website riqoentertainment.netfirms.com.

Unfortunately, despite already being in his third year of high school, Riqo is not yet sure that any local university will accept him as a student.

You see, M. Ikhwan Toriqo’s eyesight has steadily declined due to glaucoma, which he has suffered since the age of 11. His poor vision only enables him to see a website if he puts his eyes right up against the computer screen.

Riqo could, of course, invoke Law No. 4/1997 for his right to equal education and demand entrance to a university of his choice based on his intelligence, but the fight would not be over, even if he did that successfully.

“Even after winning that first step, the entrance test, many children with disabilities get discouraged because a very small support system is in place to help them get by,” the Handicapped Care Community (Kopetunda) chairman Indrayant told The Jakarta Post recently.

Law No. 4/1997 stipulates that all people with disabilities have equal rights and opportunities in all aspects, including education. But accessibility to it is perhaps one of the most challenging obstacles facing people with disabilities.

Besides having to overcome limitations posed by their various disabilities, they must also deal with people’s misconceptions of their abilities.

“I really hate it when people think blind people are only fit for being masseuses,” the student at State High School No. 66 in South Jakarta, said.

The Jakarta Statistics Agency officially listed the number of people with disabilities in Jakarta at 13,040 people as of 2004 — the majority of whom live in East Jakarta, with 5,503 people, followed by Central Jakarta with 2,282 people and South Jakarta with 2,071 people.

The number of special schools available to them, however, is limited to just three state special schools — all located in South Jakarta — and at least 81 private special schools everywhere else in the city.

Of these, only one — the Indonesian Society for Care of Disabled Children’s (YPAC) Special School in South Jakarta — caters specifically to paraplegics.

“It’s not a matter of whether the schools are enough, but students should not have to travel long distances simply to attend a state special school,” Tolhas Damanik, a counselor from a local NGO for the blind, the Mitra Netra Foundation, said. He added that private schools were often not affordable for low-income people with disabilities.

According to Tolhas, only around 5 percent of school-aged visually impaired children have access to basic education in Indonesia, while the rest are either hidden away by parents or forced to stay home due to economic restraints.

An eight-month survey conducted by Mitra Netra in East and South Jakarta found at least 150 blind children of school age were being kept at home.

Children with other disabilities suffer more or less the same fate.

“Many people, and not only those in the lower income brackets, still consider it a curse to have a disabled child and therefore are likely to hide them away,” Tolhas said, adding that some people do not even know about the existence of special schools for children with disabilities.

Curriculum designed for special schools puts special emphasis on vocational material rather than academic material to help them gain living skills according to their abilities.

“I think what we all expect is for all children to eventually be able to be independent, but with children with advanced cerebral palsy for example, it is more important to simply teach them to feel useful in society,” one of the chairwomen of YPAC’s National chapter, Fatimah P. Sidharta Soerjadi, said.

Those who wish to continue to higher education are advised to attend regular schools with inclusion programs.

In these inclusion programs, children with special needs study side by side with other children, serving also as a solution to the difficulty in providing a full range of educational services to children with disabilities.

“The inclusion program was established to give opportunities for students with disabilities who are academically capable to continue on to a university, which is why, competition-wise, they are not segregated,” a top official, Budiana, said.

In 2003, at least 21 regular schools across the five regions of Jakarta — from kindergarten to high school and the vocational high school level — participated in the inclusion program.

However, Budiana said, despite annually publicizing the inclusion schools to students attending special schools, not many are taking advantage of the offer.

“It largely depends on how ready the students and their parents are in competing with those without such disabilities,” he said, while explaining that so far the only inclusion school that regularly has blind and deaf students is State High School No. 66 in South Jakarta, because of its close proximity to special schools.

“And it’s been proven that students with disabilities at SMA 66 can compete with their peers, many even excelled,” Budiana said.

To help them in their studies, students with disabilities are accompanied by someone from a foundation, such as the Mitra Netra Foundation for the blind.

“For blind students, we give them an option of taking national examinations in braille or have someone from their foundation read the questions for them,” Budiana said.

While the blind can still listen to teachers’ explanations of lessons, deaf of hearing impaired students are disadvantaged because teachers rarely know sign language.

“There should also be special teachers who know sign language to help deaf students. Denying them that right is the same as denying them information,” Deaf Family Foundation (Sehjira) director Rachmita M. Harahap said.

On the other hand, paraplegic students with only mobility problems can go to any regular school they want. Unfortunately, not all of these schools are equipped with ramps or large toilets for their wheelchairs.

“Sometimes, out of ignorance, a school places paraplegic students in classes located on the upper levels, causing difficulties for them,” Indrayant said.

At the university level, this seemingly simple problem of getting to classes on time may cause other problems for paraplegic students.

Budiana said that for the most part, the problem lies in people’s insensitivity of what students with disabilities need, and when that happens he suggests the student, or his foundation, launch a complaint at his office in the Jakarta education agency.

“We always try to encourage schools to accept students with special needs, so that they can get the same opportunities as other students”.

Fighter refuses to let discrimination win

The Jakarta Post, Monday, 27 March 2006

Born deaf, Rachmita Maun Harahap — or Mitha, as she likes to be known — has spent most of her life overcoming communication barriers and the social stigma that comes with her disability.

Hard work is nothing to her, disappointments don’t deter her, but she really resents being underestimated.

Despite being the only employee with a Master’s Degree in Interior Design, Mitha was denied an appointment as permanent lecturer in Mercu Buana University’s newly opened interior design program — a program she had helped devise.

“I guess they feared I couldn’t communicate well,” Mitha told The Jakarta Post, who speaks clearly with a slight accent, like a foreigner speaking Bahasa Indonesia. No one would guess she was deaf unless they caught her lip reading.

“But it’s all right, one has to be patient,” she said.

Luckily, patience is something Mitha has a lot of, together with a determination to live a normal life.

Mitha’s parents, who had six children, three of whom were born deaf or hard of hearing, never taught their children that they were different to anyone else.

At home she was taught the names of objects by replicating the shape of her parent’s lips, which also taught her to “listen” through lip-reading.

“I didn’t even know I was different until my parents decided I needed hearing aids when I was nine. I thought everybody had to learn like that,” the 36-year-old said.

Her father’s job as civil servant forced the family to move several times, but she attended regular schools, such as one in Bukittinggi, until she was in the fourth grade.

“Because some of my brothers had difficulties keeping up with lessons, we were advised to transfer to a special school,” Mitha said.

Her parents were at first opposed to the plan, she said, and thought the children would miss out on having the same opportunities as other students.

Fortunately Mitha attended Karya Murni special school in Medan, North Sumatra, which was far more advanced than others like it.

Every morning, students at the school had to recite what they had done the night before in front of the rest of the class. This sort of simple act teaches deaf and hard of hearing children self confidence and trains speech.

“It was difficult, but the teachers were very helpful and kind and never treated us differently,” Mitha said.

However, only six months into the school year, Mitha’s father was transferred to Surabaya, East Java, and Mitha attended a special school there.

“But after only three months, I moved to a regular school. At the time I was in the fifth grade, but the new school used books for the third grade,” she explained.

This was perhaps the first time Mitha felt discriminated against, being made to feel she was slower at her studies than other children because of her disability.

At the regular school in Surabaya, Mitha learned to rely on herself. Unlike her Bukittinggi days, where the people were “kind and tolerant”, in Surabaya Mitha learned to deal with the taunts of other children.

“Schoolmates would sometimes jeer because I was deaf, different from them. But it was the consequence I had to face for wanting to attend regular school, and I learned to ignore them,” she said.

At this time also, the quality of Mitha’s training at home and in the regular school in Bukittinggi proved itself. Faced with teachers who were often unaware she was deaf, Mitha learned to speed read their lips.

At home she revised what she had learnt at school that day, and would usually borrow notes from friends. Mitha also read a lot to build up vocabulary — something that hearing-abled people take for granted because they can pick up words by hearing them used.

“I studied very hard, I was never lazy. People like me can’t afford to be lazy. Perhaps knowing just how much I wanted a normal life, God made me diligent,” Mitha said.

Proving herself quite able to compete with other students, Mitha attended top state high schools in Surabaya, and later in Serang, Banten, when her father’s job took the family there.

At State High School No. 1 in Serang, Mitha joined the school’s marching band as majorette and even received the title of West Java’s Favorite Majorette in a competition in 1987.

“I learned the songs by memorizing the differences in the vibrations they created,” she explained.

With full support from her parents Mitha attended Mercu Buana University’s department of architecture in 1990, where she graduated cum laude after four and a half years of study, earning her a scholarship for a Master’s Degree in Interior Design at the Bandung Institute of Technology.

But when she came back to her alma mater at Mercu Buana in 2000, she was faced with discrimination. While four other scholarship recipients were offered places as staff or lecturer, Mitha was advised to accept a position as a non-permanent staffer.

“It was only after I threatened to take legal action that the university finally gave me permanent staffer status”.

The discrimination she felt prompted Mitha to establish the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Family Foundation, or Sehjira, in 2001, to help deaf and hard of hearing couples cope with hearing family members, provide scholarships for education, and help with employment.

“We should never feel ashamed of our condition, although others may make fun of us. We may be deaf, but we’re certainly not dumb. We must show them that we can do anything we put our minds to, just the same as them,” she said.

Disabled children given the chance to learn skills

The Jakarta Post, Monday, 27 March 2006

It’s the small successes — a child being able to tie her shoes up on her own, or use the toilet without assistance — that make it all worthwhile for the Indonesian Society for the Care of Disabled Children (YPAC).

“We would love it if all our students could be independent, but for many it’s more important to make them feel useful by knowing certain simple skills,” YPAC chairwoman Fatimah P. Sidharta, told The Jakarta Post.

YPAC was founded in 1953 to deal with the rise of polio, but now also accepts children with cerebral palsy, as well as those suffering from muscle atrophy and congenital disabilities.

The foundation’s center — located on 8,000 square meters of land in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta — provides physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and music, occupational and speech therapy.

“We have a specially constructed swimming pool to help children build up their muscles through hydrotherapy,” chairwoman of YPAC’s Jakarta chapter, Renny Suparyanto, explained.

In occupational therapy, children are taught to perform everyday tasks such as using the toilet, bathing, eating and putting on their clothes.

“Some children with cerebral palsy are unable to perform these seemingly simple tasks, so we try to form the habit in them,” Renny said.

Besides therapy, the foundation also provides schooling for the children from kindergarten to senior high school levels.

“We separate severe cases from those who we hope will someday be able to attend regular schools and the curriculum is the same as a normal school,” headmaster Deden Mulyadi said.

For those unable to attend school, YPAC provides training in various skills, including weaving mops, assembling cigarette lighter heads, making greeting cards and hydroponic farming.

People with visual impairments are always welcome at the Mitra Netra Foundation’s headquarters in Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta. There they can make full use of a range of audio and braille books, which the foundation produces through its talking and braille books production units.

“We’ve been developing audio books since 1992 and have more than 3,000 titles in stock,” Mitra Netra’s vice executive director Irwan Dwi Kusnanto said, adding that the foundation had developed its own software to make it easier to convert books to braille.

Besides helping to minimize the information gap between blind and sighted people through reading, Mitra Netra also conducts rehabilitation programs to help the visually impaired accept their condition and adjust to their surroundings.

Blindness counseling services are conducted at Mitra Netra’s head office, as well as the Medical Rehabilitation division and eye polyclinic at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in Central Jakarta.

A support group for parents of blind children has also been organized, aimed at helping parents cope with the challenges of visually impaired children.

“Orientation and mobility training is aimed at optimizing the senses and to help people recognize environments, move about and go places, and carry out daily activities,” Mitra Netra counselor Tolhas Damanik said.

People who are newly blind are taught to read and write braille for at least two months before being trained in other areas.

Mitra Netra provides courses in ten-finger typing to make it easier for students attending regular school to do assignments, as well as lessons in using a computer with a screen reader installed, and calculating simple maths using an abacus.

Blind students are encouraged to attend regular schools with inclusive programs to be able to access the full range of academic services available.

Mitra Netra also helps these students with admission, providing companions to assist visually impaired students to write assignments in the Roman alphabet, reading them test questions during examinations and providing extra assistance in lessons.

It also provides education counseling as well as always maintaining good relationships with the participating schools in order to help with problems that may arise.

UI gets upgrade with world-class library

The Jakarta Post, Friday, March 24, 2006

Once it was just a big, dark, four-story building in the backwoods of the University of Indonesia campus in Depok, West Java.

But major changes have made UI’s University Library a bustling center of activity for the university’s students and academics.

Today, students’ chatter and laughter can be heard ringing through the library’s outer corridors. Some browse the shelves of the building’s upper stories, while at the newly opened Kafe Libri, several students make use of the free hotspot to log on to the Internet.

“It’s certainly different from when you were studying here several years ago,” University Library spokeswoman Kalarensi Naibaho told The Jakarta Post.

She said the UI needed a library befitting a top university if it wanted to become world class, which meant providing easier access to the library’s collection for students, lecturers and the general public.

“We have, therefore, developed a hybrid library, in that some of our collection is now available online through both the Internet and the university’s intranet,” Kalarensi, also known as Clara, said.

The digital library service was recently introduced in conjunction with the University Library’s 23rd anniversary on Mar. 5.

The library provides online catalog access to its entire collection — comprising reference books, fiction and non-fiction, theses, dissertations and magazines — at www.lib.ui.ac.id.

“We also subscribe to some 25 online databases, making us one of the university libraries in the country with the most comprehensive online database service,” Clara said, explaining that the database gives access to scientific articles and academic papers from international online journals on various subjects.

Besides the main library, each of the UI’s schools have their own specialized libraries, and many of the departments too.

This is because the schools at UI’s Depok campus are spread across more than three million square meters of land. A totally centralized library system would be inefficient for students.

“If we completely centralized the library, it would only benefit students from the Social and Political Sciences School and the Cultural Sciences School, who are in closest proximity to us,” she explained.

While not all schools have linked their database to the library’s online catalog, all students and UI staff are able to borrow books from other schools through the library’s inter-library loan system.

“So far, only the libraries managed by the Computer Science School and the Economics School have linked their database to our online catalog. But we expect all other schools to also connect to us in the near future,” Clara said.

The Cultural Sciences School Library, for instance, is preparing to enter its database in the online catalog.

“We’ve added our collection of theses and dissertations to the University Library’s online service, but although our library is already available through the intranet, we have yet to enter the data in the online catalog,” School of Cultural Sciences Library head Mohamad Aries said, explaining that one of the problems of integrating the database was the different software used.

He said the school library has over 52,000 titles, including specialized publications in various languages taught at the school, such as Chinese, Arabic, French, and English, as well as rare texts in ancient Javanese and Malay.

While the UI’s libraries are open both to its students and to the public, only students and staff at the university are permitted to take books home.