Pray for Cakung !

Cakung Children Community is an alternative education community for the children with the participation of the people in the farming & the garbage dump areas of East Cakung, the neighbours, supported by the team of facilitator, volunteers, & people around this area. By the community activities which open the children’s opportunity to have basic knowledge theoretically & practically, children learn to organize themselves, create a solidarity & cooperation also make friendship among God’s creature.

The community activities which has run over five years has involve up to 65 children. From the house to house activities based on children’s will and allowed by their parents, until 2008, we have the learning house of Cakung Children Community in the land deserved by the people & built on their own. The centre of the activities is at RT 08 RW 06, East Cakung district, at the farming area surrounded by the neighbors, we call it Cakung farming area.

The goal of the variety of these activities is to help children to open their opportunity to have their rights in prosperity, such as opportunity to learn & play, have medical care & good nutrition. The activities at the learning house of Cakung Children Community are learning knowledge theoretically & practically, library programme, children’ nutritious improvement programme, children’s healthcare development programme, & scholarship.

Cakung farming area, where the Cakung Children Community’s activities develop, is a green & vertile land, behind the Cakung Cilincing’s factories area. This land is potentially for the investors & every developers. Moreover, it still have the rest of green area at the capital of Indonesia.

During the activities, this area decrease from time to time. Started from the cleared away of the farming area become the highway to the estate from Cakung Cilincing highway to Ujung Menteng district. Before making the highway, the farming area have to fill with the red soil and children using it as the playground & other activities. Although now, it become the highway, people still call the area as the red soil.

The decrease of the area makes the people realized that sooner or later they will lost their farming land. Moreover the people’s life not only for themselves, but also for the people of Jakarta’s basic need for food.

The people’s afraid of removed has been appeared soon after some billboards stand at the end of Cakung Cilincing highway from Pulo Gadung and the side of the bus shelter at Honda, Sunter.

The rumours of the inhabitants’ removed after Ied Mobarak celebration, didn’t touch them to remove their house soon, moreover the compensation fund has not been given yet. Until the rumours blew again in the early November, the biggest worried of the people came true. They just have 500.000 rupiahs’ compensation per house. It was given to them on Wednesday evening, November 2nd, 2011.

A day after, on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011, half of people of farming area finally removed & wrecked their house by themselves.

Until now, they removed one by one because of the demand of the tenant. If they refused, the tenant will demolish their houses. The deadline was until Sunday, November 20th, 2011. Some people have a rented house, while others still busy to find everywhere. Some people still have the rented land for farming around the area of the estate which soon will be build, while the learning house just waiting for the destiny to be demolished. We still tried to run the learning activities, where for a month ahead, we will done back the activities from children’ home to home while finding an appropriate place for learning together. For this time, we still find rented place for workshop activity for the teenagers by the economical production activity whose developed by teenagers & facilitators of Cakung Children Community since 2009.

The people of Cakung is just only a small segment of society, not a big investors, moreover the conglomerats, but they have big share in basic need for food (all variants of vegetable) for all the people in Jakarta. Are they whose trying to fulfill the basic need for food for the people in Jakarta & around it deserved to be demolished?

It is really out of sense, at the era where the world countries trying to cope the food crisis, our country give more chances for the investors to develop the business of multipurpose warehouse, which can’t be plant & take the crops for the nation prosperity.

Finally, we don’t know, whose the owner of our homeland where we live & make a living?

Please… Pray for Cakung!