Buku Kami project empowers former sex workers in East Jakarta who were forced into the illegal trade for many years by providing making the use of recycled laptops. This innovative project founded and led by university students has positive social and environmental impacts.
According to UNICEF, more than 100,000 children and women in Indonesia are trafficked each year. Child prostitution is on the rise, and a third of sex workers under 18. The causes of trafficking are poverty, lack of employment opportunities, and unequal gender roles to name a few. The cultural acceptance to marry young often leads to failure of marriages followed by forced prostitution for girls.
East Jakarta is considered one of the poorest areas of Jakarta and houses a red light district, prostitution based around a park near the Jatinegara Station. According to local residents, the exchanges take place in a tent next to the railway line.
For women living below the poverty line and duped into a life of prostitution, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Such a woman, who can not be named, promised a job as a waitress there 30 years and ended up being sold in the sex trade. Today she goes to Jatinegara whenever there is a project of the production day Kami Buku ( "Our Paper"). She says she is now able to see light at the end of the tunnel because of the work she did there, and travel the length it takes to make a change in his life.
Buku Kami Project is a social enterprise offering creative solutions for interdisciplinary sex workers in Jakarta. Founded by the seeds for future granting of the Initiative Young Southeast Asia Leadership (YSEALI) - a US President Barack Obama based initiative - the Buku Kami project provides training focused on skills for older workers gender and victims of human trafficking in Indonesia. I met the Vice President External, Garreth Chan, to see how they are empowering women.
The women involved in the program design and produce high quality laptops and programs 100 percent recycled paper, which are sold online. Buku Kami project buys his paper with an internal supplier and receives pre-cut paper. "What women do is essentially cut off the covers, to reconstruct the covers together, bind, align hole and produce the books," says Chan, from Hong Kong. Laptops have been placed on the market from there a little over a month.
"We partner with brands and organizations that work for sustainable development based in the United States, Canada, Copenhagen, Sweden and India, "continued Chan." We hope to have our own retail store, but because we are still very new project, it will take us some time to realize. "
The initiative was founded and is managed by 14 university students based in Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates. Although young, the members of the team have experience working with non-governmental organizations, social enterprises, embassies and international organizations in Hong Kong, France, Belgium, Tanzania, Cambodia, Thailand, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.
Some of the students behind the project Kami Buku
"Indonesia, like other countries in Southeast Asia, suffering from sex tourism. Its sex tourism involving children is slightly smaller than neighboring countries such as Cambodia and Thailand, but it is there. many of recurring stories we hear of women we work with is there are 20- 30 years, they had been promised a job and was eventually threatened to work in the sex industry. "
women working with Buku Kami project actively trying to escape the sex industry , looking for another job, and to come to the training and production days. Buku Kami project partners with a local organization called Bandungwangi with shelter, where production takes place laptops.
Currently 20 women are trained and Buku Kami project hopes to expand in the near future. The team received requests from women who want to join the training program, which is very encouraging news.
"Right now, we are building a fund that goes back to the empowerment of women," said Chan. "This will provide micro-finance, micro-enterprise, leadership, human resource management, finance training for women, and we hope they will want to either receive training from us as well so they can be placed in a job with one of our partners, or start their own business if they wish. "
women working on the project Kami Buku
Buku team of Kami project trying to spread the message that it is not so much on notebooks recycled - even if they are large - as it is about what laptops invest: the future well-being of elders sex workers in Jakarta. Currently, the payment model for working women is a laptop, although Chan says they would like to change this pattern in the future, with sufficient support. "We want women who work with us to have a regular salary and that it becomes a regular financial alternative for them."
white notebooks in retail recycled paper . Buku Kami project to Rp.75,000-Rp.95,000 and can be purchased online please visit www.bukukamiproject.org or follow them on Instagram: buku.kami .project