Indah Nuritasari

Indah Nuritasari is a writer, translator, journalist and refugee specialist. A writer and community activist for more than 20 years, Indah’s writing and workshops amplify the voices of and gives space to immigrant communities, especially refugees, to document and share their own stories. In doing this, she hopes to change people’s consciousness and understanding of the immigrant experience in Philadelphia.

Indah was born and raised in Indonesia. She participated in establishing the first independent journalist union in 1994 when Indonesia was still under the Suharto regime. Indah strongly believes in the power of writing as a medium of expression and social justice. Indah is also the founder and Chief Editor of www.indonesianlantern.com, and a contributor to newsworks.org and other media. 

Indah will conduct five writing and art-making workshops for newly-arrived female refugees from 20 countries with “Finding New Home” as the topic. She will then put together a booklet of art and stories that portray the survival and personal struggles of these women who are finding their new homes in Philadelphia.  Indah will also facilitate an art exhibition and an open mic with the workshop participants. 

Indah will facilitate a memoir-writing workshop for Indonesian immigrant students aged 10-18 (middle and high school students) about “Growing Up Indonesian-Americans”. The participants will be 15 students in Philadelphia, who are 1st-½ generation Indonesian-Americans (born in Indonesia but arriving in the US between ages five and twelve). The writings will be published as a book, the first in a series of Indonesian-American books that Indah is working on.

Indah will facilitate four daylong memoir-writing workshops for 15 female Indonesian immigrants and migrant workers. These marginalized women usually are out of status and have low or no education. This workshop will give a voice and empower these women to come together and share their experiences. The writings created in this workshop will be published in Indonesian and English books with photography and multimedia documentation.