Orphans get creative to cash in for Idul Fitri

Jakarta, NU Online
Dandi, 12, spends his ngabuburit (waiting for breaking of the fast) painting pictures of houses and a rainbows on white t-shirts, and with a smile he refers to his painting as a 'heavenly home'.<>

"This Idul Fitri I want my father who works in Sumatra to visit and buy me new clothes," he said as quoted by The Jakarta Post. "Then we will visit my mother’s grave and pray for her."

Dandi Saputra is among 300 children living in four orphanages in Jakarta who attended "Geber Yatimers: Rainbow of Hope", a social charity event to help orphans initiated by Komunitas Berkah (Bless Community) held on Aug. 3 at Piazza Gandaria City shopping mall in South Jakarta.

"This event aims to teach orphans not to beg alms to other people, but to be independent and capable of earning money," Komunitas Berkah spokesperson Haviez Gautama said.

Haviez explained that his charity taught orphans to paint pictures on t-shirts, mugs, plates and bags, which would be sold to help raise funds for them.

"People who want to help the orphans can buy their artworks, each of which costs Rp 60,000 (US$5.83)," he said. "The funds we get from this event will be given to their orphanages."

Stenny Agustaf, the chairman of Komunitas Berkah, said that it was the second time the community held the event and he hoped that his charity could hold other similar events beyond Ramadhan.

"I really appreciate the enthusiasm of people who want to help the orphans," the TV personality said. "Before we started this event, we promoted it on social media and now we have already received 400 pre-orders for the artworks."

He added that this event would teach the orphans that "the rich helping the poor is ordinary, but the poor helping each other is an extraordinary thing."

Khalida, a civil servant said she found out about the event from Twitter and was immediately interested in participating.

"I’m very happy to see that some orphans are enthusiastically talking about their artwork, and when I decided to buy them, they thanked me and prayed for me to have a happy Idul Fitri," she said.

Dandi said it was a fun event to attend and there he learned that everybody could help themselves if they were confident and creative.

"I hope I can earn a lot money from this event so that I can buy new Muslim attire for Idul Fitri prayers at the mosque," said the eleventh grader who wants to be a soldier.

Another orphan, Ari Widya, 16, said she wanted to make money to buy some textbooks.

"Besides studying, I also teach at the orphanage, including Koran reading," Widya said. "I want to be a teacher, because I want to help Indonesian children to be successful by providing them with good education."

Editing by Sudarto Murtaufiq