Generate Income & Hope From Non-Recyclable Garbage

Dear Friends,

This month we are sharing a a story about the Salim family, who live at the landfill.

Pak (Mr.) Salim was a trash picker in Indonesia his entire life. He had very little money and no education, but he dreamed of a better life for his eight children.

Over the years his children grew up, and like many other young people living at the land fill, never had the opportunity to go to school. Pak  Salim was the leader (lapak) of the original trash picker community that XSProject worked with.  It was from Pak Salim’s dream of educating the children that XSProject’ s Education Scholarship Fund was born.

Pak Salim passed away in November, 2010. His wife, Ibu (Mrs) Salim and his children and grandchildren still live in the same community but now XSProject assures that the children receive everything they need to get a good education and start in life, except…

In January, the monsoon rains flooded and badly damaged the homes in the trash picker community. One home that was completely destroyed belonged Ibu Salim and three of her grandchildren who lived with her. 

With the help of XSProject, GlobalGiving donations and a fundraising event, enough money was raised to purchase materials to build her a new home. Her sons and other men in the community completed the construction quickly and in May, Ibu Salim, Agus (age14),  Septi (age 9) and Bagas (age 6) moved into their new home.

 Pak Salim’s dream lives on through determination of the community and XSProject to give each child a safe home, and a complete education that will enable them to find work well beyond the trash heaps.

Mr. Wardi had a big problem.

As the senior man (Lapak) in the Jakarta trash picker community, his job is to make sure there are enough trash carts in good working condition for all the trash pickers. Without a cart, a trash picker cannot move through a neighborhood collecting recyclable trash from the homes to sell and feed his family.

A lot of Mr. Wardi's trash carts were already badly worn but two carts were beyond repair. Mr. Wardi had to come up with a plan to get enough money to buy the materials to make two new carts right away.

The prospect of this happening did not look good. It would mean that two trash pickers would not be able to collect trash or make enough money to buy food for their families. His was a serious dilemma!

What Mr. Wardi didn’t know, was that his friend, Retno Hapsari, XSProject General Manager already had a plan for new carts by raising the money through GlobalGiving.

In February, XSProject received three GlobalGiving donations for just this purpose! So, when Retno went to Mr. Wardi’s house with enough money to build two trash carts, he was very surprised.

How did Retno know of his problem? How was she able to give him this money? The answers rested in a promise Mr. Wardi made to Retno years ago; that he would help her convince the trash picker community to allow their children to go to school so they would not grow up to be trash pickers, too.

Over the years, their friendship has helped raise the community out of extreme poverty, one child at a time. Retno knew from the community what Mr. Wardi needed. XSProject was able to fund Mr. Wardi's urgent need for trash carts because the GlobalGiving community of donors responded to her need.

Mr. Wardi now knows the whole story of how people very far away, who don’t know him, opened their hearts and changed his life. And this is the story of how Mr. Wardi got his GlobalGaving trash carts.