It’s easy for those of us lucky enough to be living the “good life” in Jakarta to sometimes forget the extreme poverty and incredibly difficult lives some of our fellow Jakartans are living in so close to us.
But Resa Boenard never forgets. She can’t. She grew up in Bantar Gebang, a landfill in the satellite city of Bekasi that is final destination for the majority of waste produced by Jakartans. The 108 hectare site receives some 6,000 tons of rubbish per day. Around 3,000 families live at Bantar Gebang, with most parents working as scavengers and most of their children destined to dropout of school and join them.
Resa’s parents didn’t want that fate for her, so they helped make sure she stayed in school (despite the taunts of her classmates who would call her “princess of the dump”) and eventually complete her university education.
But rather than leave Bantar Gebang far behind, she has returned to the landfill to start a recycling business as well as a community center called The Kingdom of BGBJ” (BGBJ standing for “The Seeds of Bantar Gebang”), which provides education, training, assistance, food and fun for kids who lack access to those resources.
https://youtu.be/1vB5pw1wdGE
If you’d like to learn more about the incredible work that Resa and her team are doing at The Kingdom of BGBJ, as well as how you can support them through volunteering and donations, please check out www.bgbj.org.
https://youtu.be/d58JMu7AwM0
