Every two years the Kepler-High school Freudenstadt organizes a fundraiser in the name of “Aktion Tagwerk” to support charitable and beneficial projects. Last year all children under the age of 14 participated in a charity run while the older kids worked for one day. Half of the money earned, has been donated to “Aktion Tagwerk”. Project Child, a charitable aid organization which offers free education to children and communities who live in poverty in Indonesia, received the other half of the money.
Recently Marvin Kiefer, Management of the sister organization Project Child Germany e.V., introduced the organization Project Child and furthermore explained specifically what happens to the donations once they reach Indonesia, to teachers and students of the Kepler high school.
Project Child is an aid organization located in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, which has put their focus on the education of children and their communities, who live below the poverty line. The emphases of the educational programs are on the topics of environment and health, which conduce to a sustainable improvement of the living situation of all partner communities. In Indonesia more than 43% of people live in poverty. This means that many families have to get by on a monthly budget of 20 Euros. Despite of most public schools in Indonesia being free of charge, covering the costs for buying all necessary materials is almost impossible for most families. In addition do most children have to go begging or working after school, to provide strongly needed support for the family’s income.
For Project Child education represents the „key to the chance for a better future“. They want to help children and parents individually by taking on the problems of the everyday life. “Helping people to help themselves” is the slogan, which means that no direct financial help is given, to prevent dependencies from developing. A sustainable and long-lasting cooperation with the communities should help those people.
The students of the Kepler high school are very proud of the collected sum of 5.978,97 Euro of donations, which enable Project Child to build a school building for the project “Sekolah Pantai”, translated Beach school, in Pacitan. With this project people this region can also benefit from the free educational program offered by Project Child. The construction is planned to start at the end of the raining season in April 2015. About only a month later the lessons will start.
After the presentation of Mr. Kiefer, all of the students were excited by the plans of the organization and proud to have been part of the building of a new school, if only indirectly by doing exhausting charity runs and hard work. Like Mr. Kiefer already said:” Everybody can help another person in his or her own way.”
Text: Sandra Umpierrez
