Toughest Place to be a Binman – Jakarta

 

LONDON, KOMPAS.com — Laporan mengenai kisah tukang sampah Jakarta yang disebut sebagai kota dengan pertumbuhan kota yang cukup pesat di dunia ditayangkan stasiun televisi Inggris BBC2, Minggu (29/1/2012) malam.

Laporan wartawan BBC London berjudul "Toughest Place to be a Binman" yang membandingkan tukang sampah di London dan Jakarta itu menarik perhatian masyarakat Indonesia tidak saja di Inggris, tetapi juga di Brussels dan Amerika Serikat yang bisa menyaksikan tayangan tersebut melalui BBC Iplayer.

Selama satu jam, laporan itu mengisahkan mengenai Imam, tukang sampah di Jakarta yang bekerja mengumpulkan sampah setiap hari dengan gerobaknya. Sementara di awal tayangan, tukang sampah dari Inggris, Wilbur Ramirez, menggunakan truk dan bekerja dengan dua rekannya.

Dalam laporan mendalamnya itu, BBC London membandingkan bagaimana kerja tukang sampah yang dikenal dengan binman di Inggris dengan tukang sampah di Jakarta yang sangat jauh berbeda dilihat dari berbagai segi, bahkan kesehatan dan keselamatan.

Bahkan Wilbur Ramirez, ayah dua anak itu, pun hidup bersama Imam dan keluarganya di perkampungan miskin di tengah tengah kehidupan Kota Jakarta yang kaya dan sangat timpang antara yang kaya dan miskin.

Wilbur Ramirez selama 10 hari mengikuti Imam bekerja mengumpulkan sampah di kota yang disebutkan sebagai kota yang padat penduduk dan sampah yang menjadi masalah besar. "Kamu bekerja dengan siapa saja," tanya London binman, Wilbur Ramirez, kepada Imam yang dijawab bahwa ia bekerja sendiri mengumpulkan sampah dari rumah ke rumah.

 

Menangis

Melihat kehidupan Imam, ternyata Wilbur sering kali merasa terharu dan bahkan meneteskan air mata. Mana mungkin dengan gaji yang tidak seberapa Imam dapat hidup bersama anak dan istrinya meskipun mereka sama-sama bekerja sebagai tukang sampah selama lima tahun.

Zulindatando Berry Natalegawa menulis di laman Facebook-nya, "Sediiiiiih banget liat acara di BBC 2 di London hari ini acara seorang bin man London ke Jakarta berbagi pengalaman."

"Sangat memalukan sekali Kota Jakarta ternyata sangat kotor dan masih terbelakang sekali cara kerjanya," ujar istri Berry Natalegawa, kakak Menlu Marty Natalegawa.

Menurut Linda, demikian Zulindatando Berry Natalegawa biasa disapa, seharusnya para pejabat malu menyaksikan acara yang menjadi perhatian masyarakat di Inggris. "Apa enggak malu? Malah wakil rakyat seenak-enaknya ambil uang rakyat, apalagi pemimpin negara yang tidak peduli, sangat memalukan. Semoga Allah bukakan mata dan telinga para pemimpin negara ini," ujar Linda yang bekerja di Kedutaan Besar Brunei Darussalam di London dan merekam program tersebut serta akan membawanya ke Jakarta.

Dalam laporannya disebutkan, Wilbur pun ikut mengumpulkan sampah dan bahkan menjajal melakukannya seorang diri dari rumah ke rumah. "Sampah….," teriak ayah dua anak yang istrinya tidak merasa malu kalau suaminya menjadi tukang sampah itu.

Wilbur pun tidak dapat membendung air matanya ketika berkisah bagaimana kehidupan Imam dengan keluarganya yang tidak tersentuh oleh pelayanan kesehatan.

Dari dunia kesehatan dan keselamatan sadar pengelolaan limbah Inggris, Wilbur pun merasa takjub bagaimana sampah yang menumpuk di Bantar Gebang dan dikerumuni oleh para pemulung tanpa memperhatikan kesehatan dan keselamatan mereka. "Nangis aku nontonnya…..bukan nangisin tukang sampah Inggris, tetapi rakyat kita yang kerja mengais-ngais sampah," ujar Yanti Hitalessy.

Laporan dari BBC itu pun menjadi bahan diskusi di laman Facebook yang, antara lain, disebut oleh Lies Parish. Meskipun sama-sama berprofesi sebagai tukang sampah ataubinman, tetapi pekerjaan dan kehidupan mereka sungguh jauh berbeda.

"Bahkan London binman pun sampai menangis menyaksikan bagaimana tukang sampah di Jakarta," ujar Lies Parish yang lebih dari 14 tahun menetap di Inggris.

Hamiyah Panama, ibu Amelie yang pernah menetap di Inggris dan kini tinggal di Brussels yang juga menyaksikan tayangan tersebut, mengakui bahwa benar-benar kontras kehidupan di sana, miris.

Begitu pun Tjatri Dwimunali yang tinggal di Bristol. Ia menulis, tukang sampah di Inggris yang ikut bekerja sebagai tukang sampah di Jakarta pun merasa prihatin akan nasib tukang sampah di Jakarta, dan bahkan sering menangis melihat keadaan tukang sampah di Jakarta.

Di akhir laporannya, Wilbur tidak dapat membayangkan perjalanan kehidupan Imam dengan gaji yang tidak seberapa itu dan ketidakberdayaannya untuk mengubah keadaan.

Pada akhirnya, setelah berbicara dengan ketua RT setempat, Wilbur meminta agar Imam mendapat kenaikan gaji dan hal itu pun dapat dikabulkan.

 

 

Watch the video here: BBC.co.uk: “Toughest Place to be a Binman"

YouTube Space Lab

 

 

 

 

“Humanity’s future relies on moving beyond Earth. As long as we are confined to one planet, the existence of our species will always be in question. Realising this goal will require an entrepreneurial spirit and a new generation of scientists and astronauts. YouTube Space Lab is a wonderful initiative that will help inspire young minds around the world to take a greater interest in science and the future of space exploration.”
– Professor Stephen Hawking, YouTube Space Lab judge

 

 

Happy Birthday for Professor Stephen Hawking for his 70 of ages.

Your Fire of Living Will always Inspire us!!!

Pahlawan Kebangkitan by Anis Matta

 

I really like his writing. The words are very strong and full of motivation. Motivation to keep moving and do the best not for ourselves. I wish I have more time to translate it to English. So, we are all can understand what’s his message to us.

 

Please enjoy, Pahlawan Kebangkitan (Hero of Awaken) by Anis Matta,

 

“Ibarat kehidupan manusia, ada masa kelahiran, tumbuh, dewasa, tua dan akhirnya mati. Demikian pula dengan organisasi termasuk negara, bahkan peradaban. Dalam sejarah peradaban Islam dan peradaban lainnya, ada masa kebangkitan, kejayaan dan keruntuhan.

 

Kekuatan utama yang menggerakkan masyarakat pada masa kebangkitan yaitu kecemasan. Inilah mata air yang memberikan energi untuk bergerak dan bergerak. Melangkah tertatih-tatih sembari jatuh dan bangun, meraba dalam ketidakpastian. Namun terus bergerak.

 

Kecemasan muncul karena kesadaran akan adanya jarak yang terbentang jauh antara idealisme dan realitas, antara harapan dan kenyataan.

 

Tetapi, tidak semua orang menyadari kesenjangan tersebut. Baginya semuanya baik-baik saja, tidak ada masalah dan akhirnya bersikap diam dan menikmati kondisi yang ada.

 

Orang seperti ini biasanya orang-orang awam, tidak akan bergerak sampai arus besar datang menghanyutkan mereka.

 

Mereka yang menyadari adanya permasalahan akan bergerak, melakukan perbaikan. Begitulah… Kita menyaksikan para Nabi, Rasul dan para sahabatnya yang setia. Mereka merasakan kesenjangan itu, masalah itu. Mereka cemas, bergerak melakukan perubahan,
berhasil…. Dan akhirnya tercatat dalam sejarah peradaban dengan tinta emas sebagai mujahid.

 

Jika kecemasan merupakan kekuatan utama yang menggerakkan masa kebangkitan, maka obsesi kesempurnaan adalah kekuatan utama yang menggerakkan masa kejayaan. Kepahlawanan zaman kejayaan didominasi oleh semangat perfeksionisme dan inovasi.

 

Titik tengah antara idealisme yang tidak realistis dengan realisme yang terlalu pragmatis
adalah …. OPTIMISME. Para pejuang sejati bersikap optimis, merasa tenang karena berjuang di bawah bendera Allah. Mereka percaya pasti akan mendapatkan kemenangan walaupun tidak mereka saksikan. Mereka percaya, berjuang saja sudah merupakan kemenangan, atas rasa takut, sikap pengecut, cinta dunia dan diri sendiri.

 

Perjuangan mutlak dibutuhkan dalam menjalani hidup kita ini.

 

Apabila ALLAH membolehkan kita hidup tanpa hambatan, itu hanya akan membuat kita
lemah. Kita tidak akan sekuat ini. Tidak pernah bisa sesukses ini.

 

Saya memohon diberi Kekuatan…
Dan ALLAH memberikan Kesulitan agar membuat saya Kuat.

 

Saya memohon agar menjadi Bijaksana…
Dan ALLAH memberi saya Masalah untuk diselesaikan.

 

Saya memohon Kekayaan…
Dan ALLAH memberi saya Bakat, Waktu, Kesehatan dan Peluang.

 

Saya memohon Keberanian…..
Dan ALLAH memberikan hambatan untuk dilewati.

 

Saya memohon Rasa Cinta…
Dan ALLAH memberikan orang orang bermasalah untuk dibantu.

 

Saya memohon Kelebihan…
Dan ALLAH memberi saya jalan utk menemukannya.

 

“Saya tidak menerima apapun yang saya minta………Akan tetapi saya menerima
semua yang saya butuhkan “

 

 

HIDUPLAH DENGAN KEBERANIAN.

HADAPI SEMUA HAMBATAN DAN TUNJUKKAN BAHWA KAU MAMPU MENGATASINYA.

USAHAKANLAH SEKUAT TENAGA UNTUK “MENEMUKAN” BAKATMU.

LUANGKAN WAKTU BELAJAR UNTUK MENAMBAH PENGETAHUAN DAN KETERAMPILANMU

JAGA KESEHATANMU

GUNAKAN WAKTUMU HANYA UNTUK KEGIATAN YANG BERKAITAN DENGAN MISIMU

BANYAK-BANYAKLAH BERDOA AGAR DITUNJUKKAN JALAN YANG BENAR DALAM
MENEMUKAN PELUANG

PERLUAS JARINGANMU DAN JANGAN BOSAN BOSANNYA BERUSAHA.

Erasmus Mundus Scholarship

 

Iqbal Akbar as an alumni of Erasmus Mundus shared his experience after joined that program.

 

 

Find more about this scholarship here:

http://indoem.info/

http://emundus.wordpress.com/

or the facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/uni.eropa

Burj Khalifa

 

 

Burj Khalifa (means Menara Khalifa or Khalifa Tower) is a skyscraper (pencakar langit) in Dubai, Uni Emirat Arab. It is the highest building in the world that ever made in the human history since 2010 which its height is 828 m. Higher than CN Tower (553,33 m), Taipei 101 (508 m), and Petronas Towers (452 m). It also has the fastest lift which can reach 60 km/hour or 16,7 m/s.

 

List of tallest buildings in the world

Wind Farm

Middelgrunden offshore wind farm

 

Middelgrunden is an offshore wind farm in the Øresund, 3.5 km outside Copenhagen, Denmark. When it was built in 2000, it was the world’s largest offshore farm, with 20 turbines and a capacity of 40 MW. The farm delivers about 4% of the power for Copenhagen.

Silence of Love

 

Dad, thanks for love and kindness you gave to me

I always proud to be your son

 

 

 

Maher Zain

Who doesn’t know Maher Zain? I think there is no Indonesian people who don’t know him. Even children surely know him by his beautiful music. I know that yesterday (Sunday, 9th Oct 2011), he had music concert in Jakarta, Indonesia. As one of his fans, I was very glad that he would come to my country. He inspired me by his music and his story of life. He found something’s really precious in his life, “The Strong Faith of Islam”, and distribute it to the others by his music. You can see it in his eyes. Very peaceful. Subhanallah. How about you guys, have you found your Strong Faith? May Allah gives His hidayah to all of us. Aamin.

 

Here is his story of life…

“Don’t Ever Lose Faith”

 

“Fascinated by the music and instruments, Maher Zain got his first keyboard when Maher Zain was only ten and ever since music officially became part of Maher’s world.

The family moved to Sweden when Maher was only 8, where he continued his schooling, and later entered university and got a Bachelors degree in Aeronautical Engineering. With things changing around him, one thing remained the same – his strong passion for music. He would spend late nights at school with his friends where they would sing, rap, compose and experiment with music in every way. It didn’t take him long to realize that music became an integral part of who he is.

After being involved for a while in the music scene as a music producer, Maher was introduced to RedOne, a gifted music producer who was fast rising in the music scene in Sweden. Maher started working with RedOne and later moved to New York. For a few years he was in the middle of the hot rush of the NY music industry, working with chart topping artists such as Kat Deluna on her debut album including smash hits ‘Whine up’ and ‘Run the Show’. Maher had what many would describe as a dream job for someone so young in such a glamorous business, but for Maher it felt like this was far from what he would call ‘the dream’, “I loved the music but I hated everything that surrounded it, it always felt like something wasn’t right”.On a visit home to Sweden he became engaged once more with his Islamic faith and decided to move away from a career as a music producer to become a singer/songwriter of contemporary R&B music with a strong religious influence.

In January 2009, Maher Zain decided to work on an album that reflects his identity – Arab, Western and Muslim – and signed with Awakening Records. Maher’s debut album Thank Youa Allah reached the number 1 spot on Amazon’s World Music charts and number 9 on the R&B charts.

In January 2010, in a music competition organized by Nujoom FM (Egypt’s biggest music radion station) Maher’s track ‘Ya Nabi Salam Alayka’ was voted as the best song for 2009. Runners up included big names like Hussein Aljismi, Mohammed Mounir and Sami Yusuf. Maher has already performed at sold out concerts in Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, England, France, Holland, Sweden, and the US amongst others and is fast becoming the ‘next superstar of Islamic music’.”

Copied from: http://www.islamiclyrics.net/maher-zain/

Steve Jobs

Do you know who is Steve Jobs? Yes, you’re right. But he is no longer here. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc . He passed away several days ago in his 56 of his ages and left a great history to learn.

 

Jobs hold white iPhone 4 at Worldwide Developers Conference 2010

 

Below, you can hear and read about the history of his life. He told by him self at Stanford Commencement Address in 2005. I hope you can learn something about life from him.

 

 

 

“I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Thank you all very much.

Lead India

I just imagined what will happen if the clip like this is played in the television in my country every morning before my Dad go to work, before my Mom go to the market, before the children go to school, before I go to the collage…

Very inspiring…