In the next three posts I will publish galleries of images from my visit to Indonesia in May/June. Please contact admin@visitedplanet.com if you would like to donate to any of these projects. More detailed information can be sent to interested parties.
The first of these is an activity day in the slums of North Jakarta where a community group had funded free medical/dental care and family activities.
Arrival in the slum area to waiting children.
The slums in North Jakarta are filled with Muslim families that make their living through fishing. The slum is a dusty area with narrow streets and basic housing. The main field where the clinic was held was littered with rubbish and pools of stank water.
Friendly kids looking forward to the activities.
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
~ Mother Teresa
Children in the drawing competition in the cramped quarters of one of the district’s kindergartens.
Many families in the area can’t afford to send their kids to school but the community group had given them funding to open an affordable facility. It was packed to over flowing – they really need a larger space.
A tooth extraction at the clinic without anesthetic.
Doctors and dentist volunteers tried to provide education about dental hygiene and basic health conditions. However many simply wanted a quick fix – i.e. removal of teeth (without anesthetic) and pills for pain relief.
Mothers with their babies at the medical clinic receiving free checkups.
The mother’s battle for her child with sickness, with poverty, with war, with all the forces of exploitation and callousness that cheapen human life needs to become a common human battle, waged in love and in the passion for survival.
~ Adrienne Rich
A doctor assessing the health of a female patient.
Unscrupulous doctors (from other sources) had deliberately delayed treatment for some people in the community – people who could not afford repeat treatment or ongoing medication.
A woman participating (minus teeth) in the singing competition.
Indonesians love to sing and even women of a more traditional Muslim background got up to impress the crowd with their crooning.
Faces in the crowd.
About 300-400 people participated in the clinic including the village elders, mothers with children, older people, the sick and unwell.
Women in the sack race.
Games held in the dusty field were of great enjoyment to all in the crowd and those in them. The women’s sack races were well attended with the usual laughter and fun you expect from Indonesians.
Kids roaring with laughter at the mayhem in the sack race.
You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.
~ Bill Cosby
——–
Feel free to email Jo at admin@visitedplanet.com with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations. See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com
[...] gallery of my time in Indonesia. Click here for previous galleries on the Mt Merapi volcano and slums in North Jakarta. If you would like to contribute to any of these projects please contact [...]