a love letter to IFL Yogya

is now listening to: http://8tracks.com/tangerinehearts/for-those-times-you-just-need-to-breathe

Some people said that im good on writing love letter. Love letter means a letter for the loved ones; family, friends, best friends, more-than-just-friend, etc. but I think I owe IFL a lot of things, I owe it a love letter. A love letter is simply a letter to express the love itself.

I started to curious about IFL since Iman Usman posted about it really often. It was just merely a curiosity. I knew iman usman from alanda kariza’s blog, and I knew alanda kariza from Ghiankr’s blog. I knew them around 2009. I loved them ever since. How they have achieved so much in such a young age inspired me a lot. I wanted to be like them.

Then I heard about IFL Yogya. As Said said (..?!) in our Facebook’s Group: liat deh archive IFL dulu. Semangatnya berkobar-kobar banget! And that was what I saw at that moment; a bunch of passionate youngsters who wanted to do more for the society. Dissa, my high school mate, joined it first by a close recruitment before they held an official open recruitment. She kinda gave me some info about it and supported me to join with her.

And it was  first time I ever applied to join a locally-scoped non-governmental organization. It was pretty scary at first. I saw my now-so-called colleague as those who had done much more than I had ever done. I barely knew them at first. But later.. they became such a warm family for me.

I applied for Public Relation. I love meeting new people. I love listening to people’s stories. And I believed that IFL would give me such a huge opportunity to meet great people ahead. And it was true. I had a solid team with mas Dias, mas Adit, Nunu, and… *put a sorry emote here ‘cs I forgot the name of my previous partner who later asked to di-bebas-tugaskan bcs of her school’s duty* (plus later with mba Tari). At first… I was intimidated. It’s only few people believe that I am an inferior, but I truly am an inferior. But they were really really nice. It was such a short period of time until I knew them better and got really close to ‘em.

Seminar Kewirausahaan dan Lomba Bussiness Plan was our first event. it was a huge success for me. We contacted local government, inspiring entrepreneurs and local schools. We worked hard to succeed this event without spending lots of money (which we obviously didn’t have). We made it in 3 districts; Sleman, Bantul and Kulon Progo.  It was… such a good time, I don’t lie J but then we got stuck into our awesome college life, and poof! Those spirits had gone for a while.

Some people come and go as the time goes  by; it also happened to us. Few people were missing during the duty, and then we agreed to do another open recruitment.  some people made it into the second oprec but not all of them made it last until this very second while the rest became our loveliest new family. :’D

Well in short, we trough few open recruitment until we’ve got this super lovely family.  And through the obstacles during these almost-two-years, we’ve successfully made some (what I will always say) awesome events. Name it: sumbang buku, seminar dan lomba business plan, Pekan untuk Panti, YOU+earTH, School of Volunteer (program nasional IFL),  the good meal project, IFLQuiz, dan yang ter-anyar adalah Youth Night. Belum lagi acara turun ke jalan untuk memperingati hari-hari besar tertentu.. nggak kerasa, we’ve done so much trough these 20 months. :”)

Kalo ditanya apa yang IFL berikan ke aku.. mungkin jawabannya bakalan sama kayak yang lain: pengalaman, temen-temen baru… tapi lebih dari itu, disini aku banyak banget belajar. I learn to grow, here. Disini temen-temen punya pikiran yang luas banget; we cant buy this one. Dengan lingkungan yang mendukung banget kayak gini, aku jadi lebih terpacu buat bekerja lebih baik dan berpikiran lebih terbuka. Mungkin aku salah satu dari anak yang lumayan kritis sampe kadang annoying he-he, but beyond it all, aku percaya bahwa sebenernya kita mampu kok untuk selalu berbuat lebih. And we proved it, for times.

Ditambah lagi otonomi yang diterapkan di organisasi ini; dimana kita Cuma dikasih tugas secara garis besar tapi beneran di bebasin untuk cara mencapainya. Hal ini bikin aku dan temen-temen satu divisi jadi lebih kreatif, team work kita pun jadi solid banget. Kita bisa bikin event-event secara dunia maya maupun face-to-face untuk achieve itu. Aku baru sadar baru-baru ini, bahwa IFL bener-bener menghargai kreativitas seseorang dan ngasih kepercayaan penuh pada team dan berimbas bagus banget buat kita sebagai ladang pembelajaran. Whoa, does it sound hyperbola?

Rapat PR seminggu sekali dan rapat besar IFL sebulan sekali; so far nggak ganggu jadwal kuliah. Or if it ever did, aku selalu ngutamain kampus dan temen-temen selalu memberi toleransi. There’s no such thing as being active without doing school properly. Buat orang-orang yang merasa bahwa aktif itu  berarti siap-siap akademis turun, hmm menurutku itu nggak bener as long as kita tau cara bagi waktu. Aku juga masih belajar, but so far, anak-anak IFL IPK nya bagus-bagus kok, semester satu masih ada aja yang sempurna, dan Alhamdulillah mine’s pretty much good too. Ada kalanya nilai-nilai itu ber-fluktuasi tapi aku yakin itu bukan karna occupied by IFL aja.

Satu hal juga yang berharga banget dari IFL adalah environtmentnya. Aku selalu suka waktu kumpul-kumpul IFL dimana kita brainstorm, berusaha nemuin masalah disociety tentang anak muda, berusaha cari jalan keluarnya, berusaha bikin sesuatu yang attractive buat anak-anak seumuran kita, berusaha bikin sebuah movement yang mungkin nggak massive, mungkin kecil, tapi apapun itu bentuknya harus menarik dan membawa perubahan, sekecil apapun itu. Secara nggak sadar juga, hal ini juga mengubah kita. bikin kitalebih sensitive sama issue sosial, sama sekitar, bin kita lebih toleransi, lebih kerja keras, kreatif, mandiri dan bertanggung jawab. Nggak ada sanksi apapun kalo kita nggak bekerja dengan baik di divisi kita masing-masing, tapi selalu ada rasa tanggung jawab dan keinginan untuk maju bareng IFL yang bikin aku personally (atau mungkin temen-temen lain juga) ngelakuin yang terbaik di pekerjaan-pekerjaan kita.

lingkungan ini hangat banget! Setelah capek brainstorm, bakalan ada sesi cerita-cerita dimana itu bisa diawalidari curhatan pribadi sampe ngomongin pararel universe. Adanya anak-anak dari SMA sampe berbagai jurusan di perkuliahan bikin ilmu-ku tambah banyak! Aku jadi tau hidupnya anak-anak jurusan lain, universitas lain, juga kehidupan orang-orang disekitar mereka  atau bahkan kehidupan mereka yang emang beda-beda banget. Atau karena memang aku suka dengan cerita-cerita orang lain ya? Tapi aku bener-bener bersyukur bisa kenal baik sama mereka dan tau banyak hal dari mereka. Their favorite things dari mulai girl band, berbagai band indie, gigs, radio announcer, debaters, healthy life style, film, books, dan banyak hal lainnya bikin pengetahuanku lebih luas lagi. and the funny thing is, fakta bahwa kita bisa saling terkait, as Jogja seemed really small.

And I ended this leter by saying this to you: that IFL is not merely a non-governmental organization. It’s more like a home for a warm family which teaches us about life, gives us freedom to grow, helps us find not only an identity but also idealism,  supports us to achieve our dreams and goals; the best company during the sunny and rainy days.

You dont ask for new friends, new opportunities, and all are nationally-scoped; you will get those all in time. But the joy and the happiness, the good time we spend during the hard work for the better society..would be beyond our –or even my, expectation.