Mudflow Vs Letters........

Distressed mudflow children
send letters to the moon

Oleh : Wahyoe Boediwardhana

The Jakarta post , | Mon, 07/13/2009

People have their own ways of expressing what they feel. Fifty children

displaced by the Lapindo mudflow disaster in Sidoarjo did so by writing

letters to the moon in an event held in Batu city earlier this month.

Together with 50 other children from Wukir village, Torong Rejo
subdistrict, Junrejo district, Batu City, and 10 street children from
Malang municipality, they wrote letters on pieces of paper and attached
them to threads hanging from a balloon made of paper.

Then they floated them into sky, symbolically sending all the letters to
the moon.

"I told the moon that residents of Porong badly need help because of the
Lapindo mudflow," said Abdul Amin, 10, from Besuki subdistrict, Porong
district, Sidoarjo.

"I lost my home, my school and my friends."

The program was organized by a group concerned with the welfare of
Lapindo mudflow child victims. The 50 invited children from Sidoarjo
came from three subdistricts affected by the disaster that broke out in
2006.

Apart from providing various games and play for the participating
children, the organizers also required them to express anything they
wanted to say in letters to be sent to the moon. Most wrote complaints
and expressed hope for a better future after being displaced.

"Basically we want to give them back their space and time to play, which
have been taken away by the disaster," said Aga Herman, an initiator of
the program.

"We want to show them they still have a place to play and friends to
play with."

Jumaadi, another program initiator, said writing letters to the moon was
a symbol of children loosing space, time and friend.

"They don't know who to talk to. They only have the moon," he told The
Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the event.

"The moon is the witness when these children played at night, when their
villages were still there," added Jumaadi, an artist originally from
Sidoarjo, but presently residing in Australia.

He added he would take the documentation from the event back to
Australia to show to several concerned institutions there, as well as to
Europe as a form of moral campaign.

Aga also said that apart from providing mudflow children with
opportunities to have fun, the event was also aimed at teaching the
children from Wukir village how to show empathy and express solidarity
for fellow children from other regions experiencing hard times.

He added the playing activities involving children from different places
was also aimed at reminding people to spare space and time for children
to play, because playing was also part of their lives.

Held on top of a hill, the program offered various experiences and games
for the children.

Among the activities included playing with mud in rice paddies. This was
specially designed to help reduce the trauma among mudflow victims, to
show that not all mud was bad: mud could also be fun.

Bambang Catur Nusantara, head of the Indonesian Forum for the
Environment' s (Walhi) East Java branch, said the 18 serious human rights
violation in the Lapindo mudflow case included the loss of the human
rights of children victimized by the tragedy.

The National Commission on Human Rights has also established an
investigation team to probe rights violations in the disaster.

"The oil and gas sector never provide justice for these people," Bambang
said, referring to Lapindo Brantas Inc., the company widely blamed for
sparking the disaster.

"They always become victims. Lapindo is just an example."

He suggested that victims of rights violations stemming from the oil and
gas sector unite to fight for their rights.

He said greater consolidation was the only way out for them, because it
would put strong pressure on the authorities.

"If it cannot help, then sending letters to the moon could probably help
create justice for the grass roots," he said.

Referens :
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/07/13/distressed-mudflow-children-send-letters-moon.html