Jana Laiz, Crow Flies Press

completed projects

surabaya dreaming

In January 2003, 12-year old Nastiti Puspitosari from Surabaya, Indonesia presented her friend Catrina Aniere with a painting of her dream for the children of Surabaya. Catrina was visiting Surabaya looking at the cities environmental problems. Nastiti and her friends wanted Catrina to return and help them.

Catrina, who is Program Director of the Australian children's environmental organisation Millennium Kids (www.millenniumkids.com.au), took up Nastiti's invitation to help the children of Surabaya create green spaces in their city. Devoid of parks and places for children to play, Nastiti and her friends were desperate to make an impact on their environmentally devasted city.

Together with the local environmental children's group - Tunas Hijau - Catrina ran a workshop in Surabaya in July 2003 for children and teachers to show them how to tackle and begin implementing their ideas for the environment.

..Surabaya Dreaming is a story of inspiration.

It shows:
* how a group of city childen create their first two green spaces in a city enshrouded by industrial and vehicular pollution;
* how impoversished city children living on rubbish dumps to survive are gradually being cared for by business angels;
* how city children began cleaning up the metre depth waste of plastic on the Kenjerang beach;
* how city children are taken to a botannical garden so that many of them can see, for the first time, what it is like to lie on grass under trees and look up at the blue sky.Together with the local environmental children's group - Tunas Hijau - Catrina ran a workshop in Surabaya in July 2003 for children and teachers to show them how to tackle and begin implementing their ideas for the environment.

Catrina was joined in Surabaya by Martin Meader, Co-Executive Producer and Co-Writer of the $26 million Feature Film 'Paradise Road' which starred Glenn Close and Cate Blanchett.

As the week long workshop came to a close, the children surprised their adults faciliatators with the calibre of their insights into the problems through their artwork and music.

Surabaya Dreaming is a story that will move you and reveal that even in the most difficult of situations, the spirit of children offers hope to the rest of mankind.

Copyright 2003 Catrina Aniere & Martin Meader

© Copyright MartinMeader 2003-2009