Bulletin 16: Jakarta’s poor and strategies for defusing violence and protecting migrants
Jakarta’s poor need help
Jakarta, Indonesia: capital of Southeast Asia’s largest democracy and the fourth most populous country in the world at 238 million (2011 data). Home to over 23 million people, the Greater Jakarta Area (Jabodetabek) is the largest megacity in Asia and the third largest in the world.
To outsiders, Jakarta is a shining example of Indonesia’s development. To businesses, it is a thriving market with a skilled labour force and skyrocketing consumption rates. To its middle class, it is a city that is still able to provide everything they need, despite stressful levels of congestion. But to its poor, Jakarta presents a very different picture.
Jakarta’s poor live in the scattered pockets of urban slums and witness a very different side of the city. To the poor, Jakarta is a city where basic services are out of reach and decent job opportunities are scarce. Despite their best efforts, they struggle even for minimum subsistence. How can a city growing so fast leave so many behind?
This issue of the Asian Trends Monitoring (ATM) Bulletin attempts to shed some light on the “darker” side of Jakarta, by sharing the stories of people on the ground and the few organisations that are working hard to help them. Specifically, we focus on two major themes: violence among slum dwellers and internal migration. In addition to being integral to the Jakarta story, both themes are major urban trends that present a palpable danger to an aspiring megacity. Without job opportunities and a realistic chance of breaking out of the cycle of poverty, the urban poor could grow into a serious social and economic risk for the capital’s development.
The ATM team visited Jakarta in February as the first leg of our field research on urban poverty. In this issue, we also share our latest findings, including primary data gathered from our Poverty Profile Survey. Future issues will include more such data from other cities such as Manila, Hanoi, and Vientiane.
Bulletin 16: PDF format | MS Word 2007 format
Photo essay: JPEG format
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Excellent snapshot of Jakarta, I largely appreciate it. However I would like to point out about the part of the necessity of boiling water or not – it shouldn’t be used to reflect the quality of life in Jakarta. In Jakarta (and most part of Indonesia), tap water is undrinkable unless boiled, no matter where you go. So our possible choice of consumable water is either we buy packaged water, or purifying the tap water with special filters or boiled it. It’s not just the poor, but everyone has to do it. It’s similar to the notion of ‘hard water/soft water’ being a strange concept of us – since we do not exactly have the choices to choose to begin with.
Jakarta is becoming more and more unbearable for all inhabitants, rich or poor, especially for the poorest of the poor. The richest can always go to Bali or Singapore, even Hongkong or California, they don’t have to suffer like the ones who can’t afford their life-style. Jakarta wealthiest will become richer, because they have properties outside Indonesia. The minute the Rupiah depreciates, they become richer because of their second, third homes are in Singapore or Australia or callifornia become more expensive.The children of the wealthy also have better education, they speak and write in English and now they even master Putonghua Chinese. They came home from USA or UK with knowledge and ideas, and they have friends in many parts of the world and share ideas of business opportunities, arts and life styles. These kids see the world as a whole. The poor and the lower middle class homes struggle to send their children to good schools. With limited knowledge and outdated knowledge, they will continue to be left behind, this is frustrating for them. They pray and work harder, but their ability to get ahead though possible, but is very limited. If the government really want to make Jakarta a better place to live in, it needs to built schools which teaches sciences, languages, history and ethics and most importantly the students need to be encouraged to read books written in English or any other major languages by good writers. In 1960s-70s, students read and write, to-day I can’t find a niece and nephew (about 40 of them) who are university graduates (mostly top ones like the University of Indonesia and ITB) who read news papers on daily basis. Reading books ? only dutch educated ones during colonial times who are still reading for entertainment.I myself went to convent schools in the 60s-70s. Most of our teacher were foreign Catholic Jesuit priests or Ursuline nuns who are chosen to educate due to their academic ability and firm ethical values. Now education in Jakarta has become industries to cater the local middle class.If schools aim to earn money instead of educate the young to be thinking people, Jakarta will only suffer the consequences. Most Jakartans entertain themselves by hanging out in the Jakarta malls. Book fair in Jakarta ? you can count the visitors. Fashion fair ? the whole place will be congested. They adopt foreign life-styles, but not their habits such as reading, writing to express their opinions on crucial matters. They tweet more on less necessary things. The less educated one will shout on the streets to express their views. The answer for Jakarta is still good education, education and education. Yesterday I told my niece that her school motto “In Serviam” is in Latin and it means “I will serve”. She was surprised (I was surprised that she didn’t know that) She did not know that those are Latin words , let alone its meaning. She is now in grade 10 in this numero uno girl school in Indonesia. Got the picture ?
[...] more about the challenges the urban poor face in Vientiane. After completing our field research in Jakarta, Manila, and Hanoi (results will be out soon), we are more than curious to visit the poorest among [...]
[...] Jakarta’s Poor – Strategies for protecting migrants Manila’s Poor – Bridging service gaps Hanoi’s Poor – Empowering Hanoi’s Poor Vientiane – Poor, but Different [...]
[...] More case studies and results from our research trip can be found in ATM Bulletin 16: Jakarta’s Poor [...]