INDONESIA: Farming for alternative livelihoods
CIANJUR, 11 March 2010 (IRIN): Young unemployed men are finding opportunities in a project that also aims to introduce sustainable farming methods to Indonesias agricultural sector.
A year ago, 17-year-old Mohammad Maghfur was one of many high-school dropouts. Now he earns money planting and harvesting organic (økologiske) crops to feed 30 children in an orphanage (børnehjem).
Maghfur was taught organic farming techniques at the “Learning Farm”, a half-hectare plot in the green hills of the Puncak area, just a few hours’ drive from Jakarta.
He said the main reason he went to the farm was to stop being a burden on his parents, since he could not find a job. – I just hung around, did nothing, he said, joking that it had never been his ambition to stand knee-deep in mud and manure. – I did not want to end up as a street kid he stressed.
The farm boards 45 impoverished boys aged 16-24, who are attending a five-month programme to become organic farmers. Some are juvenile offenders or former drug addicts, but not one finished high school.
However, the Learning Farm can only help a fraction of Indonesias 83 million children; almost half of 16-18-year-olds do not go to school, or drop out, according to the Central Statistics Agency.
High unemployment
Even with a high-school diploma, finding employment is difficult in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation, where about nine million people are jobless.
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