Indah Setiawati, Jakarta – Two little girls, no more than 8 years old, with bare feet and messy hair, took turns picking up pieces of litter while carrying a red plastic sack almost as big as their thin bodies.

Every now and then they would turn an envious stare toward Surapati Park in Central Jakarta where hundreds of excited children in uniform merrily drew pictures, played games and enjoyed refreshments.

By some quirk of fate they too might have been on the other side of the park, spending the Sunday afternoon with children from 26 kampungs, many of whom also usually spend their days as scavengers.

What better way to raise environmental awareness, organizers thought, than getting 430 children from the slums to portray, through a drawing competition, the grind of surviving in a filthy environment?

"We want them to express their views about the environment they live in," said Azas Tigor Nainggolan, chairman of the Jakarta Resident Forum (FAKTA), which organized the event.

The aim, according to Tigor, was to provide a living catharsis of the children's perspective: "What they see and what they expect."

Perhaps the children did not understand – perhaps they just wanted to escape from the hardship of their daily realities – but most drew idyllic pictures of mountain views or city houses.

There were no drawings of polluted riverbanks or piles of garbage. Not a single crayon mark depicted the 6,000 tons of waste produced each day by Jakarta residents.

Nevertheless, Tigor was proud of the children's efforts, notably that of Ica, a fourth-grader who drew her flooded house in Kampung Penas, East Jakarta.

Despite the environmental theme, for these young residents living in the shadows of skyscrapers it was a day of escapism, when they could act like 'normal' children as they listened to storytelling and music.

They also had a rare chance to spend time with Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo, who stopped by to chat, spreading the message to keep their surroundings clean and throw garbage in the right place.

At the end of the day, the organizers gave the children plants, including mango trees, in plastic bags. "Plant it in your house, OK," they said while handing out the plants.

For the children, the symbolism was lost on them, as they instead fretted about which plant they wanted to get.

As Jaya and Chandra, two children from Kampung Ujung in East Jakarta, wandered with their heavy plants, their happy expressions quickly faded to looks of innocent puzzlement. Stopping near The Jakarta Post reporter, they asked: "So what do we do with these plants?"

As they left the park to end the day with smiles and heavy plants, the children left little mementos on the ground: trails of litter – name tags, used lunch boxes – throughout the park.

The governor's message was so quickly forgotten. As the organizers packed up, the two little scavengers playfully poked the ondel-ondel that had amused the children earlier.

But they had only a moment to giggle, before they quickly turned their attention back to the garbage left behind after a day of environmental awareness.