Give An Education To A Trash Picker's Child

Next week, three young XSProject women from the Cirendeu garbage dump will be heading to college.

Sari will be entering her third year while Fitriyah and Nurlela will begin their first year. Not long ago, college was only a dream with no possibility for these girls from the trash picker community.

Nurlela knows firsthand how difficult it can be to find a job in Jakarta with just a high school education. After graduating high school, she wanted a job to help support her parents and two younger brothers. While a high school diploma is a huge step for a young person living in utter poverty, Nurlela learned it only delivered the most menial of occupations, making it impossible to improve her family’s condition.

Recently XSProject established a way forward for students with dreams of a college education. The XSCollege Scholarship Fund was started to make higher education a reality for youths wanting to study in STEM sciences and Nursing/Medical fields.  Students in this program, must keep good grades and work part time for XSProject.

Starting in July, all three young women are working as tutors in the XSEducation Program. Mentored by Miss Vicky, XSProject’s Early Education teacher, Sari, Fitriyah and Nurlela tutor the children, check homework, and are fast developing their own maturity, self-confidence, and sense of responsibility.

Fitriyah’s challenge is making sure her 10 first graders finish their homework before going to play. She says the most difficult subject for them is mathematics.  She helps them work through their lessons as group, making sure each student understands and gets the right answer. But, she says, teaching the children to read is also a challenge because she must work with each one individually.  In a very short time, Fitriyah has matured, learned to keep the students focused and takes her tutoring responsibilities seriously.

Nurlela is the tutor for the second- grade students. Second graders start to learn English in school and Nurlela learned quickly the children need a lot of tutoring in this subject. They also struggle with mathematics. She says tutoring second grade students gives her the opportunity to practice patience and the will to not give up on “her kids”. No matter how difficult, she is not giving up on a single student because she knows that it will mean a better future for each child. She alerted XSProject that some of her students did not get enough to eat and what they ate was not nutritious.  Parents often let the children eat when and what they want so providing an after-school snack is essential.

Sari, our third-year college student has a handful with 11 third graders. At first, she lacked confidence in her ability to control the students. Then she learned that the parents did not encourage the children to complete their homework or take school seriously. Once she understood that, she became determined to have the children’s respect, and have them listen and obey her.

Miss Vicky is happy to have the help of three tutors She has more time to work on homework with the older students. The college students are learning responsibility and earning their own money for bus fare and their cell phone minutes. Their parents are proud of them and their younger brothers and sisters have amazing role models.

Your support of the XSCollege Scholarship Fund with a one time or recurring monthly donations will provide college degrees in STEM and the Nursing/Medical fields to exceptional students from the Cirendeu trash picker community.