A Review of the Lifestyles of Street Children in Jakarta: Toward Program Development to Prevent STD and HIV/AIDS Infection

1/22/2007 12:00:00 AM

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Penulis/Peneliti: Irwanto, Ph.D ; Laurike Moeliono, M.A. ; Diao Ai Lien, Ph.D

Di dukung oleh: AIDSCAP/FHI dan USAID

According to Blanc (1994) many children in the cities of the developed and, especially the developing world face new deprivations, i.e., (1) diminishing fabric of social support in the family and community, (2) decreasing opportunities for socialization, (3) lack of opportunities to consolidate one’s self-worth in the broader societal sphere, (4) experiences of marginalization and uncertainty of the future, and (5) poorly planned urban environment. These deprivations affect children more seriously when they are poor. Scholarly teams of different countries found connection between these deprivation and the emergence of street children.

The RESCUE-Indonesia project was initiated to address some of the above issues through improvements of the capabilities of NGOs dealing with street children. The project has been implementing its activities in the Greater Jakarta Area since early 1993. Technical assistance has been carried out to strengthen the capacity of participating NGOs. Two programs specifically developed to address the problems faced by street children in Jakarta, i.e. Functional Literacy and Street business, are ready for full-scale implementation. During the final evaluation, however, it was also found that a number of NGOs have indicated interest to do activities to prevent the transmission of STD and HIV/AIDS among street children (Irwanto et al., 1994). This was instantly seen as an important area to be seriously addressed by the project.

In order to assist RESCUE-Indonesia project with appropriate HIV/AIDS prevention programs, this review I being undertaken as an effort to understand street children life styles in general and, more specifically, their health compromising behaviors which could lead to higher risk of STD and HIV infection. In addition, since the review is undertaken as a part of the larger RESCUE-Indonesia, an effort will be made to understand the role and needs of street educators in implementing STD and HIV/AIDS prevention programme.

The objectives of the review activities were as follows:

1. To understand the life style of street children in Jakarta and, especially within the RESCUE-Indonesia project.
2. To identify HIV/AIDS risk behaviors of street children.
3. To identify level of knowledge of RESCUE-Street Educators on HIV/AIDS and their attitudes toward the disease.