The Lestarilah Indonesia Season #09 this time was attended by Kusuma Diah Sekar Arum, or usually called Ara. Ara is a person who likes to ask many things since childhood and has a high curiosity. It is grateful that Ara has parents who are also willing to be patient in responding to Ara's questions, and have been Ara's study and discussion partners since childhood.
Since childhood, Ara was often invited to go on holiday to the village by her parents. Visiting farmers and ranchers makes Ara more enthusiastic about exploring the surrounding environment and creates a sense of appreciation for a product. He realized that from an outcome there is a very long process. Ara's curiosity, which was facilitated, became the trigger for her to be able to hone empathy and care about those around her. The opportunity to explore, for example when seeing cows in Salatiga, raises new questions besides 5W1H, but also what if questions. From here Ara began to learn to see various perspectives, so the Mush Project emerged.
The Mush project focuses on capacity building aspects of farmers and their families. This project increases the skill capacity of cattle breeders in the village by holding events and inviting experts to share knowledge through training for breeders. Dairy products that were originally only sold raw are now processed into various products, such as yogurt, milk pie, and so on. This project lasted for four years and had to stop for some reason.
Through this Mush Project, Ara received an award from Ashoka Changemaker when she was 10 years old. Even though the Mush Project stopped, Ara learned many lessons. First, change is neither easy nor comfortable. Ara realized that four years was not enough to bring big changes to the system. Second, it is necessary to enter the community through culture and it is necessary to know the communication patterns of the local community. At that time, Ara, who was still small and had not very proficient Javanese skills, did not necessarily immediately accept her with the ideas she brought. He carried out a strategy by looking for people who could communicate this idea to the public. Third, there is an aha moment, where he learns from this village to find his own life vision, namely to prosper together.
The foundation of the Mush Project is education. How to bring new knowledge and build a shared learning space. The same basis is also used in the Aha Project initiated by Ara. Starting from the habit of observing the environment from the window of the house during a pandemic, where he saw children playing outside the house, so many questions arose about how children's education was during this pandemic. Then came the aha moment.
Ara sees that there are many children outside whose education is hampered because infrastructure, facilities, and so on, are getting hampered due to the pandemic. Through the Aha Project, which is accompanied by local champions, as local volunteers or facilitators for the Aha Project are called, children in villages or even in urban settlements can keep learning. The Aha Project uses worksheets and stories as its basis. Together with local volunteers, the children learn interactively, directly close to nature, contextual and fun.
The Aha Project focuses on villages, especially 3T villages. But there is no denying that there are villages in the city that need help too. Ara realized that nature is actually everywhere, whether we realize it or not. "Like children in Cikahuripan Bogor, some children ask about flowers, why are the flowers here near their house, why aren't there any at my friend's house? Eventually he learns and is interested in flowers and their surroundings.” Ara said. The Aha Project, which has been going on for two years, appeared to facilitate children who almost lost their learning moments during the pandemic. With the pandemic conditions getting better and activities starting to normal, this will be a new challenge for the Aha Project in the future.
“Everyone can be a changemaker. We as individuals regardless of profession, all of us can make changes in our own way.” Ara said. "My focus is on the young people. Together with Ashoka's friends, we work together with youth networks, with schools. Together with this school network and Ashoka, we are building a community of young people who can hone their concern for the environment, not just being smart kids. We also need empathy to apply the knowledge we have.” Ara hopes that the changemaker community will become a forum for young people to be able to take real action. He believes that everyone has their own role to be useful, not always as an initiator. Initiators without a supportive team also cannot run.
This season's discussion was closed by Ara's statement about how she sees the future of Indonesia, “Quality education is what can improve the quality of human resources so they can face changing times and can continue to grow. In an era where the era has changed drastically, how does the pandemic change many things, how is the current system so vulnerable. Friends, we must be grateful to be there in a very rare moment, a moment where we were slapped by a pandemic so we can wake up and realize what the people around us really need, what the world needs. Let's try to reflect within ourselves, what strength do we really have, which I can contribute. Then we open our eyes so that we know what the environment around us needs, with empathy, with concern and social sensitivity towards others, from there we are connected, to find creative solutions, with concrete actions, for a more sustainable life.” (IK)
