This is Lian Gogali. She can fit in your pocket. I’m serious.
This is the Institute Mosintuwu, located
out of Lian’s home in Tentena, a village within the previously conflict-ridden
area of Poso on the Eastern Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
And this perfect-princess-of-a-specimen is Lian’s 5 year old, Sophie, losing her shit
over Photobooth. (Brief photoshoot
ensued.)
This year, Lian was
awarded the first ever Coexist Foundation Award for her work because she’s incredible. Some of her story, as it’s been written by
others before me (read: Jaime Menegus) is as follows:
Lian was studying for a Masters in theology during the
1998-2002 communal conflict in her hometown of Poso, Indonesia, which left over
2,000 dead, thousands more injured, hundreds of churches and mosques burned,
and over 100,000 Internally Displaced People (IDPs). As part of her research,
Lian stayed in an IDP camp for over a year, where she was touched by the
women's questions, "After you are done with your research, what will you
do for us?"
Lian decided to move back to Poso and open her porch
to the local women, creating Institute Mosintuwu (Mosintuwu means togetherness), a place where post-conflict victims,
former combatants and women of any religion can come together as friends, first
and foremost. The result has been multifaceted –part healing and new reflections
on the conflict, part social and civic training, and part peace building. So
far, Institute Mosintuwu has trained over 100 women in eight different
villages. Trainings range from interfaith peace education, domestic violence
prevention and intervention, household economic analysis, women and politics,
and public speaking. In one village where school children had recently been
decapitated because of religious vengeance, field visits by Muslim women to a
church and Christian women to a mosque helped demystify each other's faith.
These simple activities have become critical to ending the cycle of distrust
and violence in Poso.
Lian is clear in her hope and mission that that one
day Poso women will connect with other women around the world in conflict areas
to brainstorm ways to help their communities achieve peace and elevate women's
voices in the household and political arena. With the guidance of Institute
Mosintuwu and Lian, Poso's women have chosen to set the course of peace and
reconciliation for Indonesia, and hopefully, the whole world.
Today,
the Institute now has ten regular employees or volunteers and is expanding its
foci. Project Sophia, aptly named for
Lian’s daughter, has a mobile library of around 750 volumes. Regularly, Lian or her staff and volunteers
will pile the books into their recently-purchased second hand car and deliver
them to local schools so kids can have a few hours to go buck-wild with the
collection. (Pictures of my experience
on a Project Sophia run are coming.)
Within the past couple of weeks, Lian and her good friend, Lita, have
started the Malinuwu Project.
The Malinuwu Project is strives to raise environmental-awareness in
schools and the local community. In a
presentation that I’ve now attended three times, Lian and Lita play bits of An Inconvenient Truth amidst a backdrop
of highly dramatic music and demonstrate creative ways you can reduce/reuse/recycle. (Pictures of my experiences with that are
also coming.)
Just in case that doesn’t all sound impressive
enough, it’s important to note that Lian is a single mother, living in a country—and
especially a Provence—where that is mainly unheard of and barely allowed. Lian
had to travel to Jakarta to give birth in order to even obtain a birth
certificate for Sophie; without doing so, her daughter would not have been
recognized as an Indonesian citizen. She’s
in Poso doing this work despite the real risks of ostracization* and
isolation.
Oh, and because I think I’ve forgotten to
mention it, up until earlier this year, Lian was realizing all of this—going
from village to village via public transportation, wooden canoes, and by
foot—on a pair of handmade crutches. A motorcycle accident left half of her
calf bone exposed for nearly two years.
Things became even worse after the bone died and she contracted TB. Now, after a sponsored surgery earlier this
year, she’s just beginning to walk again—hobbling around on crutches or a cane
through muddy fields and rocky roads.
Somehow, though, Jaime and I are still constantly running after her,
left behind in the whirl of her agendas and accomplishments.
On Lian's Sony Vaio laptop, there’s a bumper
sticker with the Coco Chanel quote, “Well behaved women rarely make
history.” Every other time in life I’ve
seen someone post those words to facebook (half the population of my college
sorority) I’ve thought, “How hackneyed can you get.” But Lian owns those words. This lady revitalizes Ms. Chanel’s mantra in
a way I’m not even sure I can wrap my mind around.
 |
| The road to Mosintuwu. |
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