Support Refugees in Indonesia during COVID-19

Support refugees in Jakarta, Indonesia, during the coronavirus pandemic!

As many of us stay at home and self-isolate, we want to ask your support for those who do not have their own home and who are most vulnerable. In particular, we ask for your donations to support the basic needs of a community of more than 230 refugees living in tents in an abandoned building in Kalideres, Jakarta, Indonesia. This community relies entirely on donations for their basic needs and in this time of crisis, when the rest of the city is in lockdown, it has become even harder for them to survive.

In exchange for your support, we have made a digital colouring book for children (by artist Anang Saptoto), which you can download for free from our website (here) in three languages (English, Indonesian and Farsi). It has been developed as a tool for home schooling, to be shared with families around the world who are staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic. We are sharing the E-book for free, but we hope it will encourage you to make a donation so the community in Kalideres can buy food, electricity, sanitary products and basic health care, as well as materials to make their own reusable sanitary pads and filtration units that will provide clean drinking water. Please give whatever you can, every little bit helps.

To download the free colouring book, please visit our website here. For more information about this campaign, please scroll down. If you'd like to receive updates, please follow us on Instagram via: @bodies_of_power.

Thank you so much for your support and solidarity!



I. WHAT ARE WE FUNDRAISING FOR?
These are some of the provisions your donation would help support:

€690,00   Food for the community for 1 day (incl. milk for children, based on €3,- per person)
€300,00   Groundwater for 1 month
€240,00   Electricity for 1 month
€180,00   Personal hygiene products for 1 month (incl. soap, toothpaste, tooth brushes)
€27,00      1 water filtration kit to make clean drinking water (our target is to provide ten kits)


II. ABOUT REFUGEES IN INDONESIA
• There are nearly 14,000* refugees currently in Indonesia, fleeing war or persecution. 

• Refugees in Indonesia come from more than 45 countries, but nearly half are from Afghanistan*. Many of those seeking asylum from Afghanistan are Hazara, a violently persecuted minority group.

• Refugees cannot seek asylum or be granted permanent stay in Indonesia. This is because Indonesia chose not to become a signatory of the ‘1951 UN Convention’, relating to the status of refugees, or its ‘1967 Protocol’. Indonesia also does not have its own national refugee status determination system (a system to decide who has a legitimate claim to asylum)*.

• This means, whilst in Indonesia, refugees cannot legally work, receive public health care, attend school or marry.

• Refugees in Indonesia are the wards of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. The UNHCR protects refugees from ‘refoulement’ (being forced to return to their home country). The UNHCR also works to find a country of asylum, or offers to return refugees to their home country if it becomes safe.* However, the UNHCR does not provide support for basic needs such as food, water, housing, health care or schooling, whilst refugees are waiting for a country to grant them asylum.

• Due to changes in refugee policies of many wealthy countries in 2014 (including Australia, often the target for refugees traveling through Indonesia), it is now much harder for a refugee to find asylum. As such, many refugees in Indonesia have to wait for years, or even decades, for a country to offer them asylum.

• Some refugees in Indonesia qualify for support of IOM (International Organization for Migration). In this case, they are given shelter in controlled accommodation. They are also given a small monthly food budget.

• However, many do not qualify for this support and are left chronically waiting for many years (or even decades) without any financial or practical support, relying entirely on donations, or help from family members in other countries.


III. ABOUT THE REFUGEE COMMUNITY IN KALIDERES WE'RE WORKING TO SUPPORT
• In 2019, 1300 refugees began protesting about their conditions and the many years they have to wait for asylum, camping on the street outside the UNHCR office in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.

• In order to clear the streets, the city government of Jakarta offered the protestors temporary residence in an old military building in Kalideres.

• Now, 8 months later, a community of more than 230 people remains in this building. They have no support for food, water, electricity, schooling or medical care. They have been surviving entirely on ad-hoc donations from people who visit their community.

• In response to the coronavirus pandemic, they have been provided with some masks and soap from the city governor of Jakarta and the UNHCR, but they still have no help with their basic needs such as food, water, electricity, health care and sanitary products, which they need to stay healthy and clean, particularly during this time.

• With the rest of the city in lockdown, it has become even harder for them to get the ad-hoc support and donations they usually rely on to survive. They now face a crisis.

IV. WHO WE ARE
This solidarity campaign is a collaborative initiative developed by curator Alec Steadman, artist Anang Spatoto, artist Mumtaz Khan Chopan and curator Sanne Oorthuizen, together with the refugee community in Kalideres. It is connected to "A Pond is the Reverse of an Island", a community art project that will think and act together with refugee and informal kampung communities in Jakarta by "Bodies of Power/Power for Bodies" (a curatorial platform initiated by Sanne and Alec), that will take place later in 2020/2021, after the pandemic restrictions ease.


* Campaign photo shared from Awake Refugees, the Kalideres refugee community's Facebook page. 

https://publishingsolidarity.wixsite.com/website