Vision of Change Towards Being 'Mandiri'
Hold the vision, Trust the process With Every Difficulty Comes Relief FROM 1994 TO 1996, I made bimonthly 12-hour road trips from Medan city to the rural mountain town of Blangkejeren in Aceh, Indonesia. Due to its cool, alpine-like 1200 metres high elevation, it earned the name "Mont Blang" as a pun on Mont Blanc , the highest mountain in the Alps. The two who usually travelled with me were Hamzah Mutalib, Managing Director of Global Impact Singapore, then in his early forties; and Idris Darga, Chairman of a rural development NGO in his mid-thirties, whose hometown was our destination. We would pass through the jungles of Gunung Leuser National Park where we often encountered checkpoints manned by government soldiers looking out for GAM insurgents. Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) or the Free Aceh Movement was a separatist movement that fought against Indonesian government forces in the Aceh Insurgency...
