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From Street Kid to Grad Student: Willie’s Story

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Download William Ignasius Rettob is an Indonesian former street child who is now working full time and studying at university.

Adopted at birth, his host parents died when he was 15 years old.

His hometown in Ambon was then rocked by sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims.

Nearly 10,000 people died.

He left for the capital Jakarta with a man who promised him an education. Instead he was forced into child labor. 

He managed to escape and ran to a church, they then handed him over to a crisis centre for street children called ���Puspita’ and it’s there that he turned his life around.

Rebecca Henschke has his extraordinary story.

 

It’s 8 o’clock at night and around 20 current students are in the middle of their weekly after school English class on the bottom floor of a small double storey house in the east of Jakarta.

The game stops when former Puspita graduate Willie Igno enters confidently, his dark hair cut in a modern style.

Willie is a hero here.  

An orphan who fled sectarian violence and forced labor...he is now studying graphic design at university and works full time for a design company.

“My thinking is this - I am alone. I have no one to look after me. So if I don’t work what would I eat. So every night and on Saturday and Sunday I study. Then during the day from Monday to Friday I work at a graphic design company that is paying for my studies.”

Q. Are you exhausted or happy?

"(LAUGHS) It’s all mixed...am happy but I am really exhausted. There is no time to refresh myself or have fun or look for a girlfriend LAUGHS...I work from 8.30 till 5.30 and then go to university from 6 till 9 and then I study full time Saturday and Sunday.”

His life is dramatically different now from when he first arrived in Jakarta from Ambon in Maluku.

“After my adopted parents died when I was 15 I had no one, I really didn’t know what do to. A man who said he was a friend of my father’s offered to take me to Jakarta and put me into school. I was excited. But as soon as we were on the boat things changed. They didn’t have a ticket and I was forced to hide in a bag in the bottom of the boat. When we got to Jakarta he forced me to work in his stone building industry. I was paid nothing so I escaped at night. I jumped from the second storey.”

He ran to a Church whose pastor then contacted a local crisis centre for street children called Puspita.

Run by a Muslim couple Aang Ali Qohar and his wife Umi, the centre helps children from poor backgrounds, children living on the streets and those who have suffered abuse.

They provide accommodation, school fees, food, guidance and love. They have helped more than 500 children since 2000.

Aang faces breaks into a smile when he remembers when he heard about Willie for the first time.

“The first time he came here he was scared because I was out of town and so were the other volunteers. He was very confused because he was a Christian and he was traumatized by the conflict between Christians and Muslims in Ambon when he was young. Willie was very frightened and he also had just been let down by people at the Church who had failed to help him fulfill his dream of going to school. So it made no sense to him that Muslims would make his life better.”

“I was around seven years old when the Muslim Christian troubles happened in 2000. It was horrible. I went to visit the house of a friend I remember that there was blood everywhere; the white tiles were covered in blood. There was blood all over the walls. Everyday there were bombs and hundreds of people injured. You counted yourself lucky if you were not caught up in it.”

With these images in his mind he fled from the crisis centre back to the Church only to be told by the Pastor to return to Puspita.

This time Pak Aang was there and immediately enrolled Willie into School the one thing he wanted most of all. He had gained his trust.

But Pak Aang says there were difficult times.

“He had a really bad temper, so he could easily order the other children around if they didn’t do what he told them and he sometimes hit them. In the first year almost all the children had got into a fight with Willie. He was very happy here and doing well but one day he got into a fight with one of the other children and I told him that I would return him to the church otherwise all the children will suffer. He was so worried and started crying and crying like a 2 year old. He had a massive crying fit because he was really happy at Puspita.”

“I rarely cry. I have only cried twice. I cried when he made that threat and the other time was because no one had ever celebrated my birthday before and Pak Aang played a trick on me on my 16 birthday. Everyone was joining groups to work together on a project and Pak Aang told me I wasn’t good enough to join. I was so hurt. But then he turned off the lights and had a cake and everyone sang happy birthday that’s the second time I cried. So yes my life has been full of ups and downs but that’s better than having a boring life (LAUGHS).”

It’s hard to imagine that the well-spoken Willie sitting sharing stories with the younger children is the same tough 15 year old that arrived in Jakarta.

“I really love the younger students. I try to motivate them. When we are sitting playing guitar I say ‘Why am I better than you?” tease them saying ‘Come on, I am working and studying now and I know it’s hard work...the world is competitive if you are lazy and don’t work hard what are you going to be just a cleaner? So I motivate them.”

Other street children from his class are studying medicine, others are in the performing arts or working in trades, they have come a long way from begging or busking on the streets.

They are the first in their families to finish high school.

“We are proving that street kids are not the dredge of society. We are people!”

Willie joins the current younger students and sings the group’s theme song that he helped write in English.

Rapping and singing on the track is 16 year old Kay.

“When I see Willie I feel proud to have a friend who has been through so much and is now succeeding in life. It also gives me motivation to also be a success like him. What is certain though is that I will be more of a success than Willie (LAUGHS). We have to aim for that!”

Last Updated ( Monday, 04 April 2011 12:01 )  

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