Swastika Karya Junior High School is a small private school in Negara. These ‘private’ schools in Indonesia are usually very poor and have only limited facilities. The Principal Ibu Sudarijah has been at the school for many years and often allows children of parents with no hope of paying for tuition enroll. There are at least 25 of the 250 children who can’t pay and this causes problems for all the children leading to lack of facilities. In Indonesia the basic level of education required for even to lowest skilled jobs like security or shop assistant is graduation from Junior High. Less than that is unskilled labour which pays very little. For children to have any hope of a future they need to graduate from Senior High which gives them possibilities of working in Hotels, Banks major shopping centres or as tradesman. My hope is to start helping able children graduate from Junior High. This is better than nothing and these poor children even if they attend school cannot graduate as they can’t pay the National Exam fees. Hopefully sponsors will be willing to help them on to graduate from Senior High as well.

Whereas Alas Kasih has mostly Hindu and Christian children, Swastika has Muslim, Hindu, Christian as well as a few Buddhists. This means sponsors who would rather sponsor someone of their own religion can choose someone where they have that in common.
As these children live at home the overall cost of sponsoring will be less. This is a new endeavor so I am unsure of what the children will need. To start with I suggest $135.00AUD a year will be enough. This will pay Rp600, 000 tuition costs and leave extra money to help with school bags, uniforms and school needs such as pens and pencils.

At the moment two children are sponsored since April and more are available to anyone interested. Please write to me lorijg@rocketmail.com and we can discuss what you are prepared to do. Children can be visited at the school by arrangement at any time.