WUNRN
VIDEO: http://www.weldd.org/gallery/reformer-wringin-sukowono
Indonesia
– Visionary Woman Teacher in Rural Area Leads for Girls’ Education,
End to Early Marriage, Gender Equality – Grassroots Social Change - Video
http://www.weldd.org/our-voices/reformer-wringin-sukowono
10 June 2015 - In Indonesia’s East Java Jember District, Najma
Milla, a young lady in the village of Wringin Sukowono is steadily making
waves.
Ms. Milla is an
alumna of RAHIMA (one of WELDD’s partners in Indonesia), which is an organization
that advocates women’s equality based on modern and democratic ideas, and
emphasizes its presence on a grassroots level. Ms. Milla is a breath of fresh
air: with her husband Nurul, she is establishing an Islamic public-cum-boarding
school (pesantren) not solely based on religion. Her pesantren
would be the first school of its kind in the village.
Since they came up
with the idea in 2006, they have faced a number of barriers: parents, local
religious scholars and the public have strongly opposed the idea, dismissing
their concept of education dangerous, arguing that it would destroy the
religiosity of the younger generation.
“My family thinks of
me as bringing a disease, because of my unusual ideas of establishing formal
education,” says Milla. “When I first established a school here, they said:
here comes the troublemaker.”
Her school system
provides a middle school, and also religious and primary education right in the
village. This close proximity to families and their homes mean that parents can
no longer use distance as an excuse, and keep their daughters from attending so
they can get them married. One of Ms. Milla’s main aims is to reduce the rate
of child marriage, which she has indeed been successful in. “I always try to
make them capable of refusing their parents. At least to be able to give strong
reasons to their parents,” she says.
According to the
1974 Marriage Law, the minimum legal age of marriage for girls is 16 with
parental consent. Despite this, “we see so many students not finishing school
because of early marriage,” Ms. Milla remarks. “I see lots of students marrying
instead of graduating…it makes me sad.” Around her, somber parents bow their
heads in recognition.
Her school provides
a fundamental structural difference from the rest of the schools in the area:
boys and girls learn together in her classrooms. This way, they have ideas of
equality ingrained into them; both are provided with the same opportunities, which
is something completely new for schools in the area.
Through IWE’s work
with RAHIMA through the WELDD programme, and RAHIMA’s transference of this
knowledge to others in the area, Najma was exposed to new concepts of pluralism
and women’s leadership that is feminist, transformative and sustainable. She
then went on to integrate these concepts in the management and teaching methods
in her school.
The hope is that she
continues to embed these new ways of thinking at this grassroots level, and
that the girls she teaches will also go on to embody them in their own lives.
This is a starting point for young girls and their parents to realize that they
have opportunities available to them that lie outside of the goal of marriage.
This short film
documents her and Nurul’s struggles and experiences in their mission to
establish and advance their school.