Indonesia
Indonesia has the world’s fourth largest population of children: 76 million. But 13 million don’t have enough to eat, and every year 163,000 children die before their fifth birthday.
Indonesia’s location on the ‘ring of fire’ — the intersection of three highly active tectonic plates, punctuated by a string of active volcanoes — also makes it prone to natural disasters.
- We’re part of an emergency response team on permanent standby in case of disaster.
- We’re helping more than 50,000 children get a better education
- We’re helping 500,000 children living in institutions
Save the Children in Indonesia
In 1999 we set up and office in Jakarta to provide food, shelter, medicines and education to children affected by the conflict in Timor Leste and other regions. We still respond to emergencies and also work to improve children’s lives in the long term.We’re helping children get a better education
While more than 90% of children in Indonesia enrol in primary school, many drop out. Poor teaching, bullying and harsh punishments are cited as reasons many children don’t stay on. We’ve been working with teacher educators in three Indonesian provinces to improve the quality of teaching, helping them engage children and promoting alternative forms of classroom discipline. These educators have trained over 3,000 primary school teachers, responsible for teaching more than half a million children.
We’re taking care of children in emergencies
Since the tsunami in December 2004, Indonesia has endured earthquakes, volcano eruptions, another smaller tsunami, floods and, most recently, an earthquake in Sumatra that killed hundreds of people and affected hundreds of thousands. We have an emergency response team on permanent standby, and emergency supplies stored in warehouses in disaster-prone areas. We’ve also trained teachers and our own education project workers to make education a vital part of the help children get in the aftermath of disaster. In January 2009, the government adopted our teaching materials on how to reduce the risk and impact of disasters as part of the national curriculum.
We’re helping children whose families can’t care for them
Nearly half a million Indonesian children spend their entire childhoods in institutions. We’ve been working to improve the lives of these children, working with the Ministry of Social Affairs to keep care within a family setting — immediate, extended or substitute — wherever possible. And, whenever it isn’t, making sure institutions follow national standards of care, registering on a national database that we helped develop.
Find out more
- Download the Indonesia country brief (PDF 132KB).
- Read how Darini was forced to leave her home in the wake of Jakarta's flooding and the subsequent spread of disease.
Indonesia related news stories
- Friday 6 June 2008 Half a million Indonesian "orphans" institutionalised without proper care
- Indonesia has between 5 and 8,000 children's homes housing up to half a million children - making it one of the largest numbers of children in residential care in the world. Over 99% of these institutions are privately run.
- Thursday 13 September 2007 Save the Children reaches quake affected area of Sumatra
- Save the Children in Indonesia is gearing up to provide vital assistance to children and their families affected by two strong earthquakes and several aftershocks that struck off the coast of Sumatra on 12 and 13 September.
- Tuesday 19 June 2007 A Child’s Eye: Exhibition of children’s photography
- Photographs taken by 60 children reveal the reality of life in Indonesian children's homes.
