JAKARTA – They toil on the fringes, without any job security or set hours or decent wages. And the coronavirus has made their already difficult lives harder, and more hazardous.
And so a group of university students in Yogyakarta, on the Indonesian island of Java, set out to help these “informal workers.” On social media, they put out the word: We need money to help these people whose work is seldom appreciated.
In just one week, the donations rolled in. Then, said organizer Ari Wijayanto, they fanned out to distribute 400 bottles of hand sanitizers and 30 bottles of hand soaps to pedicab drivers.
Construction workers. Food sellers. Motorcycle taxi drivers. Traders in the city’s wet market, where stalls offer perishable goods like live