Getting to half way - alone
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| (from left) Andreas, Yohana, Yohanes Raharjo, Kelvin Boys, Mohammad Umar and Yonas outside the rumah singgah. |
This month’s (July) spectacular breakout of terrorists from
an overcrowded Medan jail highlights the need for prison reform. In East Java ex-convicts
are doing it their way. Duncan Graham reports from Malang:
The initiator of a daring social experiment to help former
prisoners reintegrate into society, wants his muscular compassion model taken
up in all provinces.
Next month (August), prison chaplain Andreas Nurmandala
Sutiono, 56, heads to Kalimantan to help
establish another rumah singgah (half-way
house) based on a successful venture in Malang.
Embedded in a kampong and run by the residents, it’s
believed to be the only place of its type in Java outside one in Jakarta.
Andreas (pictured below) said he’s not asking for government handouts. “This has to be done by, for and with former prisoners,”
he said. “We have to help ourselves.”
Long before he became a Protestant minister he was irreligious,
addicted to gambling, consulting mountain seers for the right numbers in
illegal lotteries.
Like many addicts he ‘borrowed’ money, reasoning he’d repay
when the numbers matched. The sum was Rp
200 million (US$20,000) and the victim a tapioca processing factory in Lampung
where Andreas worked in the finance section.
The rest of the story is depressingly predictable. Wrong number, cash gone, jail for a
year. He was 31, married with two small
children.
“I was lucky that my wife and family supported me,” he
said. “I learned so much in prison. It’s a place where the barriers of religion
don’t count for much. When I got out I
decided to help those I’d met.”
He studied for the ministry and by chance discovered a talent
for cooking, particularly bakso (meat
ball soup), and growing vegetables. He’s
now licensed to visit jails around the country to promote rehabilitation
programs, particularly raising organic produce.
In this role he said he’d advised Australian drug smuggler
Schapelle Corby in Bali’s Kerobokan prison, and celebrity politician Angelina Sondah, jailed for corruption.
The State provides some support for drug users’
rehabilitation – but that’s all, according to Andreas. Half-way houses started overseas last century,
some by penal reformers, others by governments trying to contain penitentiary
costs.
Despite having no knowledge of such trends, Andreas
understood the need. He persuaded a Surabayan man who’d also been behind bars
to donate Rp 10 million (US$1,000).
Some was used to buy simple food-processing equipment. Then the NIMBY (not in my back yard) effect
struck.
“It was difficult,” Andreas said. “The locals didn’t want ex-prisoners in their
area. But the community leader supported
me and we kept talking.
“It helped that our people cleaned up the area. Some attend
the mosque and are seen as polite and pious. We have an open house – anyone can
come in and see what we’re doing. I’m here to help, not convert.”
A Muslim neighbor Yohana agreed to rent a tiny four-room
cottage for Rp 3 million (US$ 300) a year.
That was three years ago. Numbers
fluctuate – but currently 13 men are using the facility. The experiment is now
established and appears to be accepted.
At dawn mattresses are rolled up and the house becomes a
small food factory. Dough is turned into
durian and orange-flavored noodles using fresh fruit.
Cooked meals are delivered to a local school and other bulk
buyers. About ten kilograms of noodles are sold most days under the brand Mie Otaki, a boil-down of the words organik tanpa kimia (organic without
chemicals).
“Citizens don’t want
to know about prisoners and have fixed opinions,” Andreas said. “They change their minds once I take them
inside jails. The churches could do a
lot more to help.”
Yohanes Raharjo, 46, (right) used to be showroom motorcycle salesman
before he took some of his employer’s cash.
After a year inside he re-entered the world with little chance of
picking up his old career.
Andreas taught him noodle-making, which he now does with easy skill hunched over
an electric rolling and cutting machine, training others so they can find work.
Apart from his reintegration program, Andreas is also campaigning
to save convicted murderers Ruben Sombo, 72, and his son Markus, 40, from
firing squads. The chaplain opposes
capital punishment and believes the men are innocent.
“Many ministers are
good people preaching to good people – that’s easy,” he said. “Going from bad
to good – that’s hard.”
(First published in The Sunday Post 28 July 2013)
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