Hi All -

This is Jen. I'm headed to Indonesia as a participant in a professional exchange. Ola Nasir came to Helena last year to learn everything YWCA Helena and other professionals had to give. And now, it's my turn to go and support her in her work.

TLDR: I'm heading there to support their efforts in fundraising. Their annual budget isn't big. It's just $3,500. But I'd love to provide their first year's budget from the Helena community as a gift and message that we believe in the work she and her students are doing. Help Ola permanently launch this powerful organization that matches University students with empowerment and development work in their backyard. Ola is a powerhouse leader - and sometimes all a powerhouse needs is a little support to change the world.

Ola started an organization called Langkah Kami untuk Kita (LKUK) which means "Our Steps for Us". It means that what our community is doing, we start small and we do it for all.

As a professor of International Relations at Universitas Andalas, her research is gender and development. She taught international relations, diplomacy, conflict resolution and management, intercultural studies, and international development. There is not a course that specifically offers gender studies, so she integrates gender equity in every class she teaches, adjusting the subject.

She loves connecting her students to tangible ways they can make a difference in the smaller villages outside of Padang, the city where she lives and teaches. She notes that volunteerism and philanthropy is not a core value of Indonesian culture, and she wants her students to leave their studies knowing they can help those around them. So she started LKUK where her students are the volunteers and the powerhouses behind all the organization offers to young and mature women alike.

After doing research with local NGOs working in women empowerment, she found that they were having difficulties achieving their targets or mandates. They needed help to advance women in West Sumatra. And they needed technical support. Ola's heart and training for women's empowerment and international development kicked into action.

Andalas Universtiy is committed to making a real contribution to society through Community Service. And Ola has created amazing opportunities for her Political Science student to engage in community service, ensuring LKUK is part of the University experience.

She's recruited a student team that now numbers 16. And now that the organization is a budding 3 years old, she has students who have moved on to enter their careers, but still come and volunteer or remotely offer technical support to the work. And if you met Ola, you would know why.

Having worked with Ola for 4 weeks last summer, I can speak to her contagious desire to see more for her students and the women they work with. She is constantly working from an empowerment frame, both concerned about the students taking part in the leadership and organizing and with the women and girls they work within the villages.

Here's what LKUK volunteers do on the ground:

And here's where she needs our help:

I'm heading there to support their efforts in fundraising. Their annual budget isn't big. It's just $3,500. But I'd love to provide their first year's budget from the Helena community as a gift and message that we believe in the work she and her students are doing. Help Ola permanently launch this powerful organization that matches University students with empowerment and development work in their backyard. Ola is a powerhouse leader - and sometimes all a powerhouse needs is a little support to change the world.

Will you please donate what you can to help send LKUK a start-up fund?

Here's what your donation would pay for:

Please join me in supporting LKUK, Ola, and the students who power this important work.