By Saminah, Chairman of SEJOLI Women’s and Children’s Empowerment Center

My name is Saminah, I am a normal housewife, from a normal family, not a wife of an official or a village administrator. Since the arrival of Mitra Wacana WRC in my village, I feel I have learnt a lot about many new things, educating children, organisation and about preventing violence towards women and children.

Mitra Wacana WRC usually refer to their activities as “school”. At the beginning, a lot of people joined Mitra Wacana’s school, because it was a new thing for our village. However, when we started to form an organisation that we named “SEJOLI” a lot of women started to not participate in Mitra Wacana’s activities. Some of them said it was because they were busy with work, looking after their children, not permitted to join by their husband, do not have transport, or that they would finish the activities too late in the day, etc. These were the reasons that resulted in people leaving Sejoli from time to time. In addition to this, there was a lack of support from the Bondolharjo village government, making it difficult for us to continue to improve SEJOLI.

At that time, I saw many members of Sejoli try to encourage me to resign too. But, after thinking it over, I decided that if I was to leave, then just who exactly would be active at Sejoli? Along with my doubts, in 2016 there is a new companion who I think has a passion to make Sejoli more alive and start moving forward.

At the end of 2016, Sejoli underwent a change of management. I was chosen to become the chairman of Sejoli for the period of 2017 – 2019. I felt that I wasn’t worthy to become the chairman, first because I felt I wasn’t smart enough, I wasn’t a very good public speaker and didn’t have the bravery compared to other women at Sejoli. I conveyed to other women that I can’t become the chairman, it’s better to choose someone else that’s more intelligent than me. However, the forum still chose me as the chairman.

Although with the agreement of the forum I was chosen as the chairman, I still felt out of place as a chairperson, I felt I couldn’t become a good chairman because I can’t speak in public. In my opinion, a chairperson must be a good public speaker, become a spokesperson for the organisation, and become a good example for the members, and be capable and smart.

As time went on, I gradually realized that whatever happened, “I am the chair of Sejoli”. Then I tried to appear brave, and take on a role commensurate with my abilities and braveness. I keep trying to speak well even though every time I talk I often have to come to grips with how to talk and deliver a speech but because of the support from my companions, I tried to be a strong worker and continue to speak when I was in charge of events, socialisation to schools and villages. For me, at this moment we aren’t stepping back, we’re continuing to advance forwards.