Meet Yulia Endang. She is from West Java, Indonesia. She finished her Dare to Dream course in September 2019 and enrolled in the Become a Leader course in April 2020.
“Uplifters has helped me so much, especially the Become a Leader course. I was an introverted person and always had difficulties with communication and public speaking. I was a very insecure person who often thought that I wasn’t good at anything. During the Dare to Dream and Make it Happen course, I was too shy to interact with my classmates or the team leader. I chose to do it all on my own and realized that I had difficulties interacting with groups of people as I am so shy. However, despite my shyness, I decided to continue learning with the Uplifters’ courses and I signed up for the Become a Leader course and gained so much more than just learning about money management.
Uplifters was the first and only class I enrolled in to learn about money management. I have enrolled in other classes but they are in different fields. Just like many other domestic workers, I wanted to make plans for my future and I had no idea how to begin. Learning how to communicate my plan with my family, I feel better and less burdened when I have to be strict on spending and saying no to what I think is not necessary to purchase. People around me, especially my family noticed positive changes in me.
I started to spend my day off more productively. I met some Indonesian ladies at school who love writing. I joined them and that was how my writing journey began. I began to publish anthology books in Bahasa Indonesia. For some reason, I stopped writing in 2015 and did more activities such as modelling and makeup and I ended up loving photography. At the end of 2017, I was invited to attend the Migrant Poetry Competition and was able to get to know different writing communities. I began to write and read my poem on stage and I joined competitions as well. I also love taking photos and I thought of combining writing and photography.
I have two favourite quotes that I heard from the family I was working for. These quotes are: “Be kind to others and the universe will do the same” and “If you cannot be right, then be kind”. Currently, I’m trying to maximize sharing my activities on my social media, YuliAShares, which I find is a great way to learn and share.
I would like to let our fellow domestic workers know that it’s never too late to learn and start a new page in life. Let’s use this opportunity that Uplifters offers us to make a better plan for our future. I would like to thank the Uplifters community for creating an extremely beneficial program to help us.”
