Danamon Supports Empowerment Of Special Needs Communities Through Increased Capacity For Inclusive Education

Photo: Doc. Danamon

PT Bank Danamon Indonesia Tbk, through Danamon Peduli, held a workshop for skills and financial literacy involving students with special needs, teachers, and parents of students at the 03 State Extraordinary School of Bendungan Hilir, Jakarta, on 24 April 2025, and 02 Lenteng Agung State Special School, Jakarta on 15 May 2025.

Through this program, Danamon encourages the creation of an inclusive education ecosystem and supports the empowerment of everyone, including those with special needs, through capacity building and financial literacy programs. This initiative is in line with Danamon's efforts to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), especially SDG 4 concerning Quality Education and SDG 8 concerning Decent Work and Economic Growth.

Abdul Hadi, Sustainability Finance Head Danamon, believes that quality education is the foundation for sustainable development, and access to education is everyone's right.

"Through our collaboration with the 03 State Special School of the Downstream Dam and 02 Lenteng Agung State Special School, we pay special attention to issues of education and inclusiveness, in line with our strategy to show concern and support for the education ecosystem. In addition, we also want to instill awareness of healthy financial planning from an early age to students, parents, and teachers," he said, in a written statement, Wednesday, June 4.

In the midst of the importance of the role of educational institutions such as extraordinary schools (SLB) in providing educational opportunities for children with special needs, there are still challenges in preparing them to enter the world of work. In Indonesia, although there are more than 20 million people with disabilities, only around 700 thousand of them, or about 3 percent, who have the opportunity to work.

In the industry, the food and beverage sector is seen as having great potential to absorb labor from groups of people with special needs, so there is a need to introduce a variety of knowledge and skills to make them ready to enter a competitive world of work.

Responding to this challenge, Danamon collaborated with the Indonesian Hope Foundation (Sunyi Academy) in carrying out this Danamon Peduli activity. Sunyi Academy is one of the foundations that seeks to change the social stigma towards the disability community by focusing on education, job training, and expanding access for people with disabilities so that they can live more independently and equally.

In this activity, the Sunyi Academy brings training materials in the form of introduction to types of coffee, the use of coffee machines, and coffee mixing techniques. This is in line with the Sunyi Academy's mission to prepare disabled friends so that they can have a permanent livelihood in the culinary industry.

Along with the workshop activities at the two SLBs, Danamon together with PT Zurich Asuransi Indonesia Tbk (Zurich) held a sharing session of Financial Literacy for 40 teachers and parents with the theme Cerdas and Safe in Financial and Investment Management. In this session Danamon emphasized the importance of financial management and strategies to choose the right investment to prevent people from online loan traps (pindar) and online gambling (judol), and Zurich emphasized the importance of having insurance, from health insurance to education insurance.

Through a series of financial literacy and workshop activities presented by Danamon and Sunyi Academy, Danamon hopes that this program can provide benefits to people with disabilities, in line with Danamon's vision of Peduli and Helping Millions of People to Achieve Welfare, and together with members of a group of companies in the spirit of Growing as a single Financial Group to become trusted financial partners and can continue to contribute to answering customers' needs and supporting Indonesia's economic and social progress.