Two Decades of Work at WVI
"From when I first entered in 2002, until now in 2023, Wahana Visi Indonesia still feels like home to me," said Atjie Kaya (48), a WVI staff member who currently holds the position of Corporate Planning, Monitoring and Learning Manager at the national office. Despite 21 years of service, Atjie still feels at home in the WVI family. The warmth and kinship among WVI staff is one of the things that has been a source of joy in her work so far.
This woman from Ambon opened the story of her meeting with WVI quite humorously. Flashback to 2002, when the world was not as digital as it is now, Atjie saw a job vacancy on a Christian daily devotional website (then gloria.net, now santapanrohani.org). "I remember very well that the vacancy was still similar to a classified ad, only four sentences. Looking for people who want to work for community development. Ready to be placed throughout Indonesia. That was the content," said Kak Atjie, as he is familiarly called by his colleagues.
Although at that time Atjie did not know clearly what organization had posted the vacancy ad, she still applied. After graduating from university, Atjie was determined to work in remote areas of Indonesia. Her goal was to work with communities in villages in Kalimantan. The advertisement was the right answer at the right time, to work in remote areas of Indonesia.
"My parents didn't give me permission at first. They also didn't understand what a social worker did until the tsunami in Aceh, when I said, yes, social work is one of them taking care of this. Only then did my parents understand and give permission. Because my parents thought, I'm from Ambon, how come instead of working in Java I'm going to a place even more remote than Ambon," she said with a burst of laughter. It didn't take long for Atjie to start her first career journey. Wahana Visi Indonesia was the first place Atjie worked and has remained loyal to this day. She started her career at WVI as a management trainee. Atjie began her journey working with the community in the operational office of Banggai District, Central Sulawesi, which was the first Area Development Program (ADP) in Indonesia.
In 2003, after completing the management trainee program for approximately four months, Atjie then held the position of Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator in ADP Banggai. Atjie's work as the person in charge of monitoring the alignment of program planning and implementation has continued until her current position. In the past, she worked as a monitoring and evaluation coordinator at the operational office level, now working as a manager for the same topic but at the national level. Her experience of working directly with the community for approximately six years is a valuable thing that supports her current profession. "During this time, I have also worked with many generations of staff. Some are senior, some are young. So I can also build relationships and work strategies in different ways," she said. For Atjie, besides field experience, working in the humanitarian field also requires good relationship skills.
Working with data turned out to be fun for Atjie. As a Corporate Planning, Monitoring and Learning Manager, Atjie is currently struggling with data on the planning, implementation and evaluation of all ongoing programs in more than 30 WVI operational offices. If for some people this data is a source of fatigue, but not for Atjie. "I like data. I love doing program or project management. I am also happy when I can help my colleagues in the operational offices see the impact of their programs from the beginning of the planning until later when they have to leave the area," explains Atjie.
As one of the staff who has a lot of experience both technically and conceptually, Atjie concluded that for her, being loyal to work in any field is closely related to the similarity between personal vision and organizational vision. The more similar the vision, the greater the contribution of each person to the organization, and vice versa. The organization can also contribute to the transformation of the staff. "For me, working at Wahana Visi Indonesia is in line with my vision. I also love children. But, moreover, my background growing up in Ambon saw how children live close to conflict and also parenting patterns that are quite harsh. So I have a hope to do something that can make a difference for children. So that these children can live better than what I saw when I was in Ambon," she said.
Writer: Mariana Kurniawati (Communication Executive)
