Many years ago, young Indonesian girls were denied education and educating women was then considered illegal. Girls were restricted to education and often caged in their own homes. Raden Ajeng Kartini was a prominent Indonesian national heroine. She was a pioneer in the area of women’s rights and education for Indonesians. She dedicated her life towards women’s emancipation in Indonesia and founded the first educational institution for women in the country.
On 21st April of every year, people around Indonesia celebrate Kartini Day in her memory. We were very fortunate that on 21st April 2012, we were able to celebrate Kartini Day with the local children, young girls and women from villages around Connect Indonesia, The Charity’s centre in Tobasa. There were approximately 65 women and children gathering to celebrate this special day. It was such an amazing experience to be able to exchange stories and experience with these women and to have the opportunity understand the world they live in.
Through this gathering, we demonstrated and shared a few cookery tips, some of which fairly new to these women, such as tomato salad and barbecue fish & fruit smoothies. Please help us fund our next Kartini Days or other women education meetings in the learning house. Thank you for reading this update. Enjoy the photos from this meeting.
Gathering such Kartini Days is a great example and proof that networking can be done and is a great way to promote friendship and unity within women and their families in the village. We hope that we could arrange more Kartini Days or other women networking meetings in the near future. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves, and showing so much interest in reading any available reading material at the centre. We hope everyone here will continue to show interest in learning new things, once more books and magazines available for them to enjoy.
Our huge gratitude to Rosmelina Sinaga, for helping to arrange this event. Our sincere gratitude to everyone attending our event on the day. Indonesian women are very hungry for education, given the opportunity to learn and to share.
We are truly thankful to Tara Pakpahan who has managed to organise delivery of books and magazine to the centre last month, thank you, Tara, God bless.