How can a river contain so much water when its upstream spring is just a trickle?
This question was in Daniel Alexander’s mind when he traversed the great Mahakam River in East Kalimantan many years ago.
After tracking the 1,000 kilometer-long river to its primary water spring, he found the answer that was to become his life philosophy.
The spring inspired him to turn his life into an act of giving. His choice was to give education to less-privileged children in Papua under the aegis of the Pesat Foundation.
Starting with one school in Nabire 20 years ago, the foundation now has dozens of schools spanning 11 provinces.
“Eighty percent of the schools adopt a free education system,” Daniel recently told a group of 40 Indonesian students at a Griffith University campus in Brisbane.
So how did all of this happen?
“The water spring taught me to keep enough to support my family. I returned the rest to the community through the school program,” said the educator-cum-social worker.
The explained that the trickle of water from the upstream spring received additional water from other springs as it headed out to sea. More water came from the river’s tributaries and from the rain, swelling the volume of water that made the river, Daniel said.
The lesson was, he said, whatever is given back to the community, it will only grow manifold.
“A hundred years from now, nobody will ask you how much money you have or what kind of car are you driving. Instead, people will ask what you have done for others,” said Daniel, who was born in the East Java capital of Surabaya in 1956.
Anjar, a PhD student in environmental science, said she was fascinated by the analogy. “I never thought that way,” she says, ”although I often scaled rivers as part of my research.”
After tracking the 1,000 kilometer-long river to its primary water spring, he found the answer that was to become his life philosophy.
The spring inspired him to turn his life into an act of giving. His choice was to give education to less-privileged children in Papua under the aegis of the Pesat Foundation.
Starting with one school in Nabire 20 years ago, the foundation now has dozens of schools spanning 11 provinces.
“Eighty percent of the schools adopt a free education system,” Daniel recently told a group of 40 Indonesian students at a Griffith University campus in Brisbane.
So how did all of this happen?
“The water spring taught me to keep enough to support my family. I returned the rest to the community through the school program,” said the educator-cum-social worker.
The explained that the trickle of water from the upstream spring received additional water from other springs as it headed out to sea. More water came from the river’s tributaries and from the rain, swelling the volume of water that made the river, Daniel said.
The lesson was, he said, whatever is given back to the community, it will only grow manifold.
“A hundred years from now, nobody will ask you how much money you have or what kind of car are you driving. Instead, people will ask what you have done for others,” said Daniel, who was born in the East Java capital of Surabaya in 1956.
Anjar, a PhD student in environmental science, said she was fascinated by the analogy. “I never thought that way,” she says, ”although I often scaled rivers as part of my research.”
Daniel asked his campus audience what would happen if the spring and the tributaries refused to give water back to the river?
“Floods will occur,” the students replied.
Daniel said: “The most difficult thing to say in this world is to say ‘I have enough’. The failure to say ‘I have enough’ is the biggest sin of humanity.”
According to him, many people felt they never had enough and kept on adding to whatever they had accumulated.
He viewed floods as a metaphor for a world abundant with promises of wealth.
His practice of giving back has won him the attention of thousands of students over the years.
“Six of them now have doctoral degrees. Hundreds of them are university graduates,” said Daniel who first went to Papua in 1993.
Born into a poor family, Daniel grew up with a determination to lessen the suffering of others. He worked his way up to eventually study and live in Australia, which he did from 1985 before moving to Papua.
Asked why he chose Papua as his starting point, he said he found the contrasts in the eastern-most province of Indonesia to be unbearable.
“The province is so rich and yet the people are so poor,” Daniel said.
A student asked if he had ever burned out in his 20 years work.
“Never. On the contrary, I get more spirited from one day to another,” he said.
However, in one of the poorest regions of Indonesia, offering an opportunity for children to go to school is barely enough.
The offer has to be complimented with an assurance that the children will have good food to sustain their health.
Another challenge is to introduce the culture of learning in a community where schooling is an alien concept. Parents often do not believe in education and prefer their children to work.
Daniel chose to set up a dormitory, with children between the ages of four and seven from around Nabire comprising the first batch of students.
Daniel said he believed children had talent from the day they were born.
“Children are like arrows that are longing for the care and love of their parents,” he said.
He believed no child was born evil, echoing the ideas of world-renowned author and educator Dorothy Nolte.
“Only bad environments and bad upbringings turn a child evil,” he said.
This was the reason why, he said, he often went to prisons to ask whether the inmates had children.
“The chances are that these kids have stopped going to school because their imprisoned parents can’t afford to pay the school fees,” he said.
In that case, he said, the foundation would take care of them.
Daniel said he was a regular visitor to about 40 percent of prisons in Indonesia.
“Once I was summoned by the Law and Human Rights Ministry. It turned out that they only wanted to see me because my name was often being mentioned by many prison staff,” he laughed.
His penchant for visiting prisons earned him the nickname “the collector of nasty people” among his colleagues, as those he usually helped out were drug users and repeat offenders. He even became a victim of theft a day after he brought one freed prisoner home.
“I lost everything, including my new laptop and camera, but never mind. I took it easy,” he said casually as if it was not a big deal.
Daniel lives in Nabire with his wife Lucy Luise Tanudjaja, an Indonesian who lived in Canada before her marriage to Daniel. The couple is childless.
“I married late,” he said. “It was not easy to find someone who liked to live in a remote area. Perhaps this is the reason we are childless, but I have thousands of kids now.”
“Floods will occur,” the students replied.
Daniel said: “The most difficult thing to say in this world is to say ‘I have enough’. The failure to say ‘I have enough’ is the biggest sin of humanity.”
According to him, many people felt they never had enough and kept on adding to whatever they had accumulated.
He viewed floods as a metaphor for a world abundant with promises of wealth.
His practice of giving back has won him the attention of thousands of students over the years.
“Six of them now have doctoral degrees. Hundreds of them are university graduates,” said Daniel who first went to Papua in 1993.
Born into a poor family, Daniel grew up with a determination to lessen the suffering of others. He worked his way up to eventually study and live in Australia, which he did from 1985 before moving to Papua.
Asked why he chose Papua as his starting point, he said he found the contrasts in the eastern-most province of Indonesia to be unbearable.
“The province is so rich and yet the people are so poor,” Daniel said.
A student asked if he had ever burned out in his 20 years work.
“Never. On the contrary, I get more spirited from one day to another,” he said.
However, in one of the poorest regions of Indonesia, offering an opportunity for children to go to school is barely enough.
The offer has to be complimented with an assurance that the children will have good food to sustain their health.
Another challenge is to introduce the culture of learning in a community where schooling is an alien concept. Parents often do not believe in education and prefer their children to work.
Daniel chose to set up a dormitory, with children between the ages of four and seven from around Nabire comprising the first batch of students.
Daniel said he believed children had talent from the day they were born.
“Children are like arrows that are longing for the care and love of their parents,” he said.
He believed no child was born evil, echoing the ideas of world-renowned author and educator Dorothy Nolte.
“Only bad environments and bad upbringings turn a child evil,” he said.
This was the reason why, he said, he often went to prisons to ask whether the inmates had children.
“The chances are that these kids have stopped going to school because their imprisoned parents can’t afford to pay the school fees,” he said.
In that case, he said, the foundation would take care of them.
Daniel said he was a regular visitor to about 40 percent of prisons in Indonesia.
“Once I was summoned by the Law and Human Rights Ministry. It turned out that they only wanted to see me because my name was often being mentioned by many prison staff,” he laughed.
His penchant for visiting prisons earned him the nickname “the collector of nasty people” among his colleagues, as those he usually helped out were drug users and repeat offenders. He even became a victim of theft a day after he brought one freed prisoner home.
“I lost everything, including my new laptop and camera, but never mind. I took it easy,” he said casually as if it was not a big deal.
Daniel lives in Nabire with his wife Lucy Luise Tanudjaja, an Indonesian who lived in Canada before her marriage to Daniel. The couple is childless.
“I married late,” he said. “It was not easy to find someone who liked to live in a remote area. Perhaps this is the reason we are childless, but I have thousands of kids now.”
http://m.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/02/daniel-alexander-s-gift-giving.html
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