PROFIL DAN ASPIRASI ANAK JALANAN DI KOTA PEKANBARU

Abstract

Urban poverty is a kind of over-urbanization phenomenon which commonlyhappen in big cities in developing countries, including Pekanbaru. The increasing amountof underage streetworkers, which is commonly described as streetchildren, becomes one ofthe indicators of urban poverty. The urging demand to fulfill life needs force the poors to puttheir school-age children to work, either at after schoolhours or on schoolhours, whichmeans completely abandoning their schools. The purpose of this study is to describe thediversity of the underage streetworker’s characteristics and the aspirations to improve theirfuture lives. This study is done thru survey method, which includes direct interviews withstreetchildren at their workplaces, resulting a conclusion that there are a great diversity ofthe streetchildren’s characteristics. Most of the schoolage streetchildren are students ofelementary schools in Pekanbaru. The rest of them, mostly teenagers, don’t go to schoolanymore. The ones who still go to school still have the wish to get educated; however, it isalmost gone in the school drop-out ones. They wish more of an economic empowerment, suchas an entrepreneurship education that can support their family’s economic state. A morestrategic poverty-elimination program must be initiated by the city-government to preventnegative implications of this streetchildren phenomenon.