The children of Marunda Village

Jakarta's decentralisation push has been seen as one of the most ambitious overhauls of a developing country in the last decade. From Indonesia's near financial collapse in 1997-98 to today, under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the economy appears to be thriving. By allocating large parts of the country's annual budget to separate regions for projects they deem necessary, local governments are funding issues affecting their areas, rather than issues the federal government recognises.

Marunda Village is located on the northern outskirts of Jakarta. Companies have poured funding into the village to establish aquaculture farms where locals cultivate shrimp and krill in holding pens, while living in accommodation provided by the company. The village lies within the ocean's tidal zones; for the livestock to survive the water needs to be changed daily, which is provided by the natural flow of the ocean tide.

A government run school also lies within  the tidal zones. At high tide children wade through water to pile rocks as a make-shift pathway to the classroom to partake in morning studies. Through the national government's decentralisation push the aquaculture industry has thrived and provided income and housing for local villages. However the local school has been overlooked in the recent allocation of funds.

Roostien Illyas, a social worker and founder of the Nanda Dian Nusantara Foundation in Jakarta has been working with Marunda Village to improve education for the children, before parents decide to remove them from school to help with their work. She seeks to empower the children to be 'proud of being village children' and to avoid the 'Jakartan dream' of transit to the central city. By working within the community and approaching the parents first, she listens to their wishes and adapts the project to meet the needs of the children's education.