Jakarta, Indonesia – Indonesian actor and filmmaker Dian Sastrowardoyo started her career as a model when she was just a teenager, hoping to save up enough money to study overseas.
Her entertainment career took off and Dian never did get that degree from a foreign university.
But now, more than 20 years later, dozens of other Indonesian women are furthering their studies, and it is all thanks to Dian.
In an interview with media, the 42-year-old said she “needed to pave the way” for women in “rural Indonesia to have access to higher education”, inspired by Raden Adjeng Kartini, Indonesia’s national hero who fought for women’s rights more than a century ago.
More than 30 women have been through Dian’s namesake undergraduate scholarships since she began the initiative in 2015. Some have worked as startup managers and paralegals, while others earned their degrees in informatics and veterinary medicine.
Dian also collaborates with Markoding, a local nonprofit, to run free coding lessons and programmes for hundreds of Indonesian women.
“If you want to invest in education, one of the key areas to invest in is women because mothers are basically the first teachers in a human’s life. If you invest in women, you are also investing in their children and grandchildren,” she said.
“We are opening the horizons of these girls, and now many of them have succeeded.”
With more than 9.2 million followers on Instagram, Dian is one of Indonesia’s most celebrated actors.
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