Women Role in Development and Humanitarian:
My Life Story as a Humanitarian Worker
I wrote this to commemorate this year World Humanitarian Day's theme on Women Humanitarians. I am very grateful and appreciate that the YukSiagaBencana (https://twitter.com/yuksiagabencana or https://www.instagram.com/yuksiagabencana/?hl=en) has chosen me to be the face for Women Humanitarians, it is a great honor to be parts of these women warriors!.
I started to build my career in the humanitarian sector formally when I was 20 years old before then I actively engage in the communities as the Youth Group Leader. I remember spending my youth time managing complicated cases of my peers which were mostly dealing with drug use, unplanned pregnancy, and domestic violence. At the teenage age, I barely could enjoy having my own personal life, since I spent most of my time either engage with the schools' extra-curricula, school organizations, or in the community events. I am quite lucky that I have both parents that fully supported my activities, both of them were also former activists from HMI (Indonesia Muslim Association), with background on legal and tax. I would say that I idolized my parents.
By the age of 20, I received a scholarship from Bank Mandiri-People to People Aid-Nurani Dunia. I remember standing in the toilet after I received the announcement as the selected candidate for the award. I looked myself in the mirror and reflected on how young I was at that time (I was in Class 2001, while most of the recipients were Class 1999) and how I had to ensure my self to not disappoint my parents and family, as the award required the awardees to continue their work for community development. Among the Awardees which we called Team - 9 as it consisted of nine university students, three of them including women, are women. The women held a significant role as a program officer, finance and administration, as well as government relations.
At that time, I was actively engaged in promoting anti-drugs campaign for the youth groups, involved in several types of research with the faculty laboratories, took part in the community programs, an Olympian for Athletic, Volley, and Basketball, as well with active members of several organizations such as the Student Executive Body, the Student Senate, the Soccer Associate, the Student Military Regiment, and Indonesia Women Coalition. I always consider myself lucky to start up my career in local NGOs of Nurani Dunia, I have learned so many things in the community development program from the expert himself, Mr Imam Prasodjo, a sociologist, lecturer, and activist.
When I graduated with my bachelor degree in Social Science of Criminology, I thought I will have to struggle to find a job, but it only took 3 months before I landed working as a Program Assistant in a French NGO, ACF (Action Contre la Faim) for Disaster Preparedness Indonesia Project working on Flood Preparedness in Jakarta. I remember that there were three women out of seven staff in the program. The other two were the liaison officer and GIS officer. My assignment in the organization is quite short, only 4 months, including as their consultant for community assessment. I remember, my supervisor at that time, Mr Edward Turvill gave me a bible of ACF Water and Sanitation Guideline and said to me "read this book, I believe you will have the opportunity to be an expert in WatSan". Which was actually turned out to be the truth, by 2011 I joined with the CDC of Ministry of Health for the Bilingual Secretary and Desk Officer for Health Water and Basic Sanitation Program, famously known as CLTS (Community Total Led Sanitation/STBM).
Based on my professional short experiences in Nurani Dunia and ACF, it turned out to be an entry pass for me for another assignment for the next 15 years ahead, including (in order) with MPBI-2006 (http://mpbi.info/), Islamic Relief UK-2007 (https://www.islamic-relief.org), SIGANA-2008 (https://sigana007.wordpress.com/), UNORC-2008 , Mercy Corps-2008 to 2009 (https://www.mercycorps.org/), HFI-2010 (http://www.humanitarianforumindonesia.org/), Ministry of Health-2011, WHO-2012-2013 (http://www.searo.who.int/indonesia/en/), Save the Children-2013(https://www.stc.or.id/), UNESCO-2013-2018 (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/jakarta/), and ended up with UNDP started this April 2019 (http://www.id.undp.org/).
Working with these agencies, gave me the opportunities to explore some parts of Indonesia, from Aceh, Nias, Pandeglang, Bogor, Malang, Yogyakarta, Bali, Riau, Ambon, Manado, Flores, and Lombok. In most of these regions, women's participation can be considered as low, even worse in Lombok where you can only find 3 women out of 20 or 30 men participants. Yet, I notice that these women, despite how small of their representatives' number, they have a very strong and focal voices. These women are able to provide detailed information and share the issues in the areas in a very comprehensive way, such as sensitive issues concerning women's and children's needs, disabilities, environmental, and policies.
The women representatives in many forums have a strong supporting system from their families. Their husband support and allow them to engage in the community activities, they have family members or relatives that look after their children while they're gone, or without hesitate they will take their children to participate in the activities. I reflect them into my own life, as a wife and a mother of three children. I have a great partner (who is happened working in another province as well) that understand my potential and ability to give some space for my creativities, also I have a wonderful assistant, friends, neighbors, and family members who are willing to share their love and attention to our children.
Becoming a humanitarian worker doesn't mean that you have to sacrifice your family matters to the sake of people at needs. A humanitarian worker means that you have the ability to balance your personal life and society. Being a woman in the humanitarian world should able to encourage you to support women to have a better life (better education, access to health, increased income) and improve the qualities of their families. Sometimes, when we are on top of having the luxury and privilege from our works, we have the tendency to lose our identity and involve more in the competitive world with others to improve our worthiness for the employer. As I look back and mirroring myself, 15 years of struggling up a hill and down the valley, it is a good time to give back. Give back to the societies that will receive more benefit from the experiences that I have. Though it is very hard to keep on moving and leaving the children behind. Yet, a very close colleague of mine recently said to me that "There are reasons why you are here, as long you can let it go and trust the God, everything will be just alright".
Having realized the fact that for a woman, the hardest thing is to leave the children and deal with the public assumption of heart cold career woman who just chases her career. I feel that the monetary benefit from the work is not worthy enough compare to the mental breakdown every time other people said this harsh thing. Even, among the soccer moms, your own presence will be aside and receive their ignorance. For some women, who do not understand the struggles and condition of humanitarian works; to meet the deadlines, assignment to remote areas, short-notice deployment, being harassed by the co-workers and partner agencies, and not having the time to pamper themselves, should really understand that the women who do this kind of work is actually trying to ensure that the other women needs and participation can be fulfilled. We, as women should support each other. Not just to ensure our participation and representatives, but also to educate our sons on how to respect their women partner and future wife, and for our girls to have the opportunity to build a career in the humanitarian world.
