How to Reduce Number of Beggars in Jakarta

Jakarta, Indonesia (News Today) - People in Jakarta have been urged not to give alms to street beggars and thereby to help reduce the number of beggars coming to the national capital. In response to the rising number of beggars in the run up to the Islamic festivity, Tatang Suyanto, an official of the social rehabilitation service of the Jakarta City Social Services Office, said on Thursday the best way to reduce the number of beggars in the caital was by not giving alms to them.

Public charity in the form of donations would be effective if the money was given to social institutions rather than directly to the beggars, he said, adding that if the public still had a tendency to give alms to street beggars, more and more beggars would be encouraged to flock to Jakarta. According to him, the Social Services Office would assist people who wanted to make donations or give alms to the right institution by providing them with information on which social institution were in dire need of public donations.

The Jakarta administration had often tried to familiarize the public with the best way of distributing alms and on how to act toward beggars on the basis of Provincial Regulation No 8, 2007. When facing beggars or homeless people, Jakartans were advised to take the soft approach whereby the former should be encouraged to contact social institutions that would take them in, he said.

Beggars and homeless people who were willing to live in existing nursing or destitute people homes would indirectly come under governmental care, he added. At the social institutions the beggars would be nurtured and motivated not to go beggging in the streets anymore, he said.

Furthermore, Tatang said, beggars could be categorized into two groups. The first group consisted of real beggars, and the second of people who only pretended to be beggars as an easy way to get money. Real beggars were taught religious tanets by the office, so that they would have no objections to living in homes for indigent people , he said.

Beggars identified as Jakarta citizens would eventually be sent back to their respective homes after undergoing a mental and physical rehabilitation process.

Source : kompas

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