Ayuningtyas Widari Ramdhaniar, Public Facilitator – Works to eradicate bullying, through education

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Ayuningtyas Widari Ramdhaniar – woman entrepreneur, activist, and bully survivor. (Source: TINA ASBANIA)

Based on her own experience, Tyas made it her life mission to warn everyone that bullying is an evil that frequently occurs among us. “Most of the people who talk about bullying were only sharing their opinion as a public figure – they never suffered from bullying themselves. They never found themselves in such a tight position. They only spoke out to fill in their social media account, there is no true ‘feeling’ behind their words to society. We must remember that most bullies are children. We need to educate them, approach them, talk with them so that they know that what they are doing is wrong. Unfortunately, we Indonesians tend to make instant judgment of anything and anyone. Therefore, we should all stop discriminating, even against bullies. We need to approach and educate them properly. This is a duty of us all, the duty of all citizens and not just that of the Government. After all, a child is tabula rasa, a blank slate. It depends on us parents and adults what to write or draw on them, what we will color them,” she said. 

Tyas’ bitter past molded her into a tough, smart adult lady. Her parents’ divorce during her 6th year of Elementary School demanded it of her. “I am grateful that I have experienced this – that I was forced to get into the uncomfortable zone. I thought, ‘God gave me this problem to make me ‘somebody’. At that age, my friends were playing happily together. On the contrary, I needed to keep talking to myself and make myself more adult than I was. Even now, I am actually grateful for everything that I experienced as a child. I believe that everything that happens – even a single leaf falling down its tree – happens with Allah’s knowledge and blessing. Therefore, when Allah gives us a difficult problem, it’s impossible for Him not to give us a way out. Since then, no matter what problem I face, I always dare to face it. I’m just not the type of person who runs away when she runs into a problem. I am grateful that I have my current career precisely because of my parent’s broken marriage and the bitter and tough life that I endured,” she declared. 

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What will Tyas suggest so future generations can stand up to bullying? “Don’t ever underestimate other people’s bad words or deeds against us. When a person treats us badly and we’re not happy about it, talk it out with a person we can trust. The most important thing is to speak up. Because if you stay silent, you are normalizing being bullied. It will take root inside you, it will hurt you far into the future and hurt more people than you realize, because others might suffer from what you did with your trauma,” she declared. 

Tyas hopes that all forms of stigmas and discriminations, in all levels of life, will be eradicated someday in the future. “Everyone has the right to proper education, sufficient food, proper access to health services and economic opportunity. We can’t simply blame a person for committing evil deeds. Why? Because maybe that person does not mean to do bad deeds, but they don’t have the economic access required for halal or rightful employment, so they have to steal, for example. Who wants to get imprisoned, who wants to have a bad track record in the public eye? Nobody! But there’s so many of them, because there is access to necessary economic, social, and other facilities. This strongly affect their lives, and so they were forced to become involved in crime,” she declares. (des)