Showcase

Home puts family in orphans’ lives

Italian is on the menu in Indonesia. Ten boys, more habituated to the local custom of eating with their hands, struggle to twirl strands of marinara-covered spaghetti around fork tines. Their chatter succumbs to giggles and snickers as they concentrate on the unfamiliar challenge. Eventually, the thin pasta strands slurp over their lips, and the boys grin, proud of their accomplishment.

Share your club's service project success story!

Dangling strings of pasta, a Wisma youth helps himself to an Italian-style lunch.

A Kiwanis Wisma puppet production reenacts the Jack and the Beanstalk tale.

Transforming challenges into accomplishments are the lessons of life taught and instilled at Wisma Kiwanis in Parung-Bogor, a rural area outside Jakarta, Indonesia. Wisma, which means “home,” is supported by the Kiwanis clubs of Indonesia and prepares orphan children for life.

“The children receive scholarships for a formal education, and they also receive the education a la Wisma,’” says Committee of Wisma Kiwanis chairman Andy Simanjuntak.

The system stresses the child’s participation in spiritual, educational, emotional, and experiential development. After school, the boys return to Wisma for a full day of learning experiences. Each child, for example, records his daily chores in a “SMART” book. Did he make his bed? Sweep the floor? A star denotes yes; a moon, no. Good behavior has its rewards. Misbehavior has consequences, with the child involved in determining a proper punishment or intervention.

Yet, there is plenty of time for play. An enclosed yard can be a soccer arena or badminton court—two of their favorite pastimes. In the library, a group salvages a discarded box to craft a stage for a finger puppet production of Jack and the Beanstalk. And Wisma regularly schedules parties, inviting neighbors so the boys develop friendships outside their home.

“There are approximately 35,400 neglected children in Jakarta and its surroundings,” Andy says. “Many of them are orphans. Due to a lot of reasons and mostly because of poverty, they were abandoned and left with no proper life, which includes no food or clothes, no shelter or education.

“There is no better substitute for the love of family. That is why Kiwanis clubs in Indonesia decided to build an orphanage, which provides not only shelter but home to these unfortunate children.”