My name is Tuti Aritonang, had married and I’m 38 years old woman.
I come from a poor family where our lives are very simple and do not have any valuables or possessions. I have 6 brothers and one sister. I think my parent is a wonderful parent. Just imagine they both had to work hard to meet the needs of their eight children. To buy rice and side dishes for everyday meals must be quite hard for my father not to mention to pay for the cost of eight of our education. As I believe it must be very very tough life for my parent at that time. My father worked as a driver in a travel agency. He often goes out of town and left home and we were up to four days and then return home. My mother was mostly working in the house to take care of the children, cook and do other homework. My mother was also involved in many social activities and church. My mother was a choir teacher and she can play several musical instruments such as piano, guitar and harmonica very well. She has a multi-talented in art and music and she always took the time to teach young children to sing and play music and dance. She taught us as well. Five of my six brothers are singers and they have performed their singing skills in different cities of Indonesia and even often invited singing in abroad such as Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Switzerland.
Unfortunately my parents passed away on their age who has not been too old. My father and my mother suffered of heart disease and the disease eventually cause both my parents died. I and my seven siblings must fight together to meet the needs of our daily lives. After I graduated from high school, I was looking for just any job to get money. I was lucky because I was accepted to work in one of the leading newspaper in the city where I live, Medan, North Sumatra. After I worked at the company almost 4 years, I later enrolled at the university and take a three-year diploma majoring in marketing management. The fate of my brothers were almost same like me. They also needed to work and save money and pursue a better education. Until the end I graduated and I started looking for better job. I have been worked for many companies and my latest work is five years worked for Church World Service, a non-profit organization. My latest work will then connect me with TLM where I really enjoy so much such job. From since I was a teenager, I've been involved with social activities, volunteering and active in church youth activities. I learned a lot alone, including learning a foreign language like English. I never take a course or any formal education because of lack of money. I chose to study at home with my brothers. In my family we were all almost can speak English pretty well, even my other brother can speak German, Mandarin, Italian very well. Everything with a self-taught home study.
The most part I love about my doing is to write about other people who eventually took me to work in non-governmental organizations, first of all as a volunteer. I often volunteered to work as a youth volunteer in several cities in Indonesia and even in other Asian countries such as Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippine, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. I followed the internship program to work with some youth from several Southeast Asian countries to promote peace and justice, faith-based inter- discussion and dialogue through creative writing. I also often involved in humanitarian organizations when natural disasters occur as a humanitarian volunteer, such as earthquake and tsunami in Aceh and Nias Island, the earthquake in Yogyakarta, the tsunami in Pangandaran, etc.
I really enjoy the activities and my work. Meet with people who are different background, and hearing people life stories especially those who are marginalized and poor and write them to make my life meaningful. Although not much I can do for them, at least to hear then write their survival until they can back to smile again, is something that touching my heart as a humanitarian worker. And the same role then I go through almost a year in the city of Kupang in conjunction with TLM, where I work today. The role that I have still the same, such as to write their stories of struggle for a better life, on how they could out of poverty with a small business that can be developed. Being a translator to office guests especially from abroad who want to meet with TLM clients, and facilitate conversations that could enhance their passion for poor people better life, which perhaps will inspire the guests to find and connect people of good hearts across the world and care for people who are still marginalized and needy life to be care of. That's my hope when I decided to still want to work in TLM Foundation.
