Quality Education for Children in Indonesia

Our organisation, Yayasan Usaha Mulia, is a non-profit organization that works to improve the quality of life for disadvantaged people in Indonesia since 1976. Our working areas of Cipanas, West Java and Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan involve a range of projects including Health, Education and Community Development, assisting people regardless of their race, religion, gender, age and ethnicity.

Because of our involvement with children, we created a Child Protection Policy a few years ago and a workshop was held recently to refresh and ensure that all our staff understands the policy, and what it involves. We want to avoid the harmful things that could occur during activities with the children, especially at YUM Community Library, where most of our educational activities are located.

Last week, the workshop was held in Cipanas. There were two main topics in this workshop, the rights of children and how it applies in the YUM environment. The workshop keynote speaker, Mr. Samsul Maarif, started by giving a detailed explanation about the rights of children. Then he continued by having a group discussion about several children’s rights violation cases.  There were some new ideas that came out as a result of the workshop, especially about how to promote this material to the community in the area.  At the end of the workshop, all of the staff got a copy of the YUM Child Protection Policy booklet, and signed the agreement as their commitment.