School in the park for Riau street kids
Children who beg at the traffic lights in Pekanbaru have an uncertain future.
Their parents don’t allow them to go to school – it’s better, they say, to hit the streets begging and busking so that they can bring money back home.
YPP teaches them to care about education so that they can get off the street and attend school as other kids do. YPP invites them to study in an open space near their usual busking spot, helping them to learn their alphabet, to read and write, and to draw and count.
Still, some parents really do care about education and understand how important it is. So it is for Mrs Rumini, who with her three children has now left the street. All the children now attend school, and two of them receive financial support from YPP Riau for their education.
Other Fresh Start initiatives:
Fresh Start Tambora
Railway community preschoolers learn to read