Since the departure of President Suharto, Indonesia is no longer a police state. In that respect the life of the street kids has improved – although the economic crisis has left its obvious marks on the streets too. The Sanggar Akar Anak shelter is situated in the eastern part of Jakarta, which is the biggest city on the densely populated island of Java, with well over ten million people. The shelter was set up years ago by the activist Ibe Karyanto, an inspired and visionary man. It is a safe place and an alternative school for street kids and other poor wretches. They live there permanently, or just spend the day there and sleep with their parents in the compound at night. The children themselves have built a house there from recycled wood. There is library, a tiny music studio and an editing room where the children make their own newspaper on hand-me-down computers. Karyanto tries to involve the children in everything. They can make their own plans and do things. Such as determining the curriculum. Such as making music and acting. They make the instruments from waste materials. A piece of wood and a few bottle caps nailed together produces sound. To scrape together some money they go out onto the street. Standing next to a traffic light, making music and singing. It’s called ngamen; making music and begging. And that’s what all the children do, at least for a few hours a day. Under the supervision of Karyanto, the children have made a musical.

They performed in a real theatre, the TIM, and it was such a success that the Jakarta Post, a prestigious English-language newspaper, made room for it on the front page. They placed a photo of boy dressed in a golden suit next to children in rags, because the musical carried an accusation: rich versus poor. Of the children that participate in the Home/Life photo project, Untung has the best way with words. Originally, Untung comes from a rubbish dump, he says. Together with his parents he used to forage about the garbage in search of usable and sellable materials. After the death of his mother and attempts by his stepmother to kill him, he returned to the dump himself. The police put him behind bars and subsequently dropped him on completely unfamiliar terrain in the middle of the night, said Untung. He started walking. He ended up at Sanggar, and he has never left there. Untung thinks that photography is wonderful. There’s no lack of subjects. He made portraits of his friends, of ngamen and of the floods. Torrential downpours have flooded Jakarta, and its canals and rivers, where many of the poor live, have overflowed. Homes have been swept away and Untung was there with his camera. One day, a cow is delivered to the shelter for the ritual sacrifice during the Muslim feast. A gift for the victims of the floods. Untung finishes his entire roll of film. “It was the first time that we slaughtered a cow here. I wanted to capture that for later.”Did I think it was frightening? Not at all.”