A Catholic midwife who has served a remote Indonesian province for more than three decades was among 10 women honoured by the government during its 144th Kartini Day celebrations.
Yovita Mariati, a midwife from Sikka district in East Nusa Tenggara province, received the award at the state palace in Jakarta on April 21.
Indonesians celebrate the day annually to commemorate the birth of their national heroine Raden Ajeng Kartini, hailed as a symbol of women’s empowerment for promoting gender equity and women’s rights during the Dutch colonial era.
Mariati has served new mothers and children as a midwife in Sikka district’s Nangalimang villages for the past 34 years.
The 54-year-old is a mother of four children who was widowed in 1999. She doesn’t get paid for her work and survives by selling hand-woven fabrics.
But that hasn’t stopped her from working for and advocating medical interventions to prevent diseases such as dengue fever, malaria and tuberculosis in the villages.
“I am crying and touched because it turns out that someone cares about what I have been doing all this time. I never thought that one day I would be rewarded like this”
An emotional Mariati, who received the award from First Lady Iriana Widodo, said: “I am crying and touched because it turns out that someone cares about what I have been doing all this time. I never thought that one day I would be rewarded like this.” She said she had only tried to do what she could for her fellow humans based on her high school education and the training and experience she had gained while being on the job.