School on Top of a Garbage Heap

Nitida lives in an ACP children's home on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Together with other residents of the home, the 17-year-old rides her scooter ten minutes to school five days a week. There she attends classes with 300 other children and young people. Most of her classmates come from very modest backgrounds, as ACP employees founded this school center in the middle of a poor neighborhood. Nevertheless, all students receive a comprehensive and high-quality education, which begins with preschool and elementary school and only ends with middle and high school.

Ten minutes, two worlds
After lunch, the high school student gets back on her scooter. And after only ten minutes of riding, the surroundings change abruptly and the student becomes a teacher. However, it is not in a friendly, colorful school center like the one she knows. The classroom is clean and well-maintained, but it smells terrible. That's because Nitida is involved in a slum area that is located directly on a garbage dump.

At least five days a week, sometimes even on Saturdays or Sundays, a team from the children's home comes here. Their motivation is their love for Jesus. Under the attentive guidance of the home director, the young people teach children who grow up on the garbage mountain. Learning to read, write, and do arithmetic opens up whole new perspectives for them, ones their parents never dared to dream of. And because Nitida and the other young teachers also tell them about Jesus, the slum dwellers also gain knowledge of the most precious treasure on earth.