Blog

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

It’s hard to believe that 2011 is coming to an end in less than 2 weeks!  So much has happened in the past year and we are very lucky to be blessed with great clients, great colleagues, and great opportunities.

First, let me take this time to thank you all for all your support, critics, comments, opportunities, trust, and friendship.

Our crew had a chance to document the power of women in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.  We had a chance to witness the progress of HIV/AIDS prevention in Papua. We learned more about the struggle of persons with disabilities.  Internally, we are happy to welcome new members of our crew: videographers, photographers, and writers. All in all, I am proud and happy to be a part of these exciting times for Matahati.

We have new projects cooking and new ideas brewing… and we will definitely be sharing this with you all as they come along.  But just to give you a little idea, we aim to share more this coming year.  And of course, these are FREE!

Please make sure to subscribe to this site to make sure you can be the first to know about our upcoming freebies!

One more thing! After six years, we finally have a facebook page.  Please take a few seconds to visit us and like us! You will find notes from the field from our crew, watch our “behind-the-scene” videos, and be an active part in sharing your stories with us.

Wishing each and every one of you a great holiday and a great year to come!

And our kids have something to say as well….:)  Enjoy!

PUBLIC WALK–WORLD DISABILITY DAY, 2011

Say hi to our photographer tomorrow and get him to buy you free drinks!

Join us this World Disability Day, 2011 on a PUBLIC WALK to support Indonesia’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its “Inclusive Development” strategy.

SUNDAY, Dec 4, 2011

Time: 0730 – 1000

The walk will start from the Indonesian National Radio Station (RRI) Senayan at 7.30am and take a 3km circuit towards the Palace, around the Bank of Indonesia round-a-bout, and return to RRI at approximately 10.

World Disability Day 2011

Pak Happy, Orator of the day. "Better Electoral Access for Persons with Disabilities" Photo courtesy of Ade Johansyah.

According to UN Enable, 15 per cent of the approximately 1 billion people in this world are living with one form of disabilities or another.  This is between 110-190 million people!

Another quarter of the global population are people directly affected by disability as care-givers or family members.

Despite the numbers and statistics, issues of disabilities are still seen as an “un-sexy” subject by many governments and persons with disabilities remain largely marginalized, unemployed, and often subjected to stigma and discrimination.

This year, Matahati has had the opportunity to work on the issue closer.  With UNICEF Indonesia, we had a chance to look into the idea of inclusive physical education for children with disabilities in Jakarta.  We watched and documented teachers developing program where disadvantaged children can play sports together with public school’s children.

New rules are made, new friendships are forged, and new hope for better understanding community and less stigma is found.  (Keep your eyes on this space, for more on this subject)

We also had the honor to working with AGENDA, The ASEAN General Election Network for Disability Access.  We met and worked with some great individuals who are fighting for greater electoral access for persons with disabilities.

WALK WITH US AND SUPPORT THE ISSUE

Sirajganj, Bangladesh

SIRAJGANJ, BANGLADESH – AUGUST 11, 2004

Just two weeks ago this had been Sharikon’s, 10, home, today it is just sand. The water came in the night fast and merciless. Her family and four neighbors lost everything but their lives. Sharikon is mute but her neighbor Abul Dewan and LPS Secratary for the village of Chawhara had helped the family flee to the safety of the CARE built flood shelter. “The children were terrified. Everyone feared they’d be swept away in the rushing torrent,” he explained. “Four houses once stood on this homestead and it was only 25 meters from the flood shelter, but today it is nothing.” (more…)

Fixing

I don’t actually believe in mixing my personal and professional life. But someone told me recently that both is two sides of the same coin and sometimes you just can’t help it. No matter how hard you try.

Thus, this video makes it to this website.

Our latest “youtube-sensation” featuring our very own Xenia Estey. Watch it and have a laugh. (more…)

Make Yourselves Heard

Communication is often underrated.  Yep, as a form of discipline and profession, many companies and/or organization still failed to see the importance of including communication in their business plan. And if they do remember, it is either done as an afterthought or as part of a marketing tool.

According to the definition given by wikipedia, communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to another.  The success of this process is how well is the message understood or perceived by the receiver.  Now that’s the basic most simplest understanding of communication.

In the era of 2.0 where forms of communications are more varied than even imaginable ten years ago, communications take on a much different form than the traditional oral, writing or visual forms.  We are no longer relying on traditional source of information.  We are more and more relying on our social network for a personalized source of information. Sure it may not be as objective as our traditional source of information, but when you’re flooded with ‘generic’ products, ‘personalize’ product is gaining more persona, including in the communication realm.

We believe that every person, every organization, every company is unique. This is what the marketers call ‘cutting edge’. Now how well is this communicated is the question.  More often than not, this ‘unique’ ness is communicated to the stakeholders in a ‘generic’ form and losses its uniqueness in the process.  What a waste, isn’t it?

Identify your uniqueness and don’t let it get lost in translation!

“Because Everyone Has A Story”

WELCOME to MataHati Productions and join us in the enchanting world of story telling. Follow our weekly light bite column and get insider’s tips on photography, videography, and writing. Browse through our portfolio to see what we’ve done and how we can help you or go behind the curtain and see our crew at work. So read on, enjoy your ride, and let us know what you think.

Papua, We’ll be Back!

Guilty as charged! We really haven’t been really good about updating you about our trip to Papua.  Mainly because we had really packed days and all the experiences were so mind-blowing that I got so distracted from writing.

(more…)

Documenting HIV/AIDS problem in Papua

Our flight to Papua is going to leave in a few hours.

This will be our first trip to Papua for 2010, hopefully it won’t be the last one.

Papua’s HIV and AIDS prevalence rate is ten times higher than the national rate and sadly, this number is mostly made up of young people. In the past five years, Unicef has been training a group of peer educators to help improve the level of awareness about HIV and AIDS among young people and the general population.

We are so excited to have the opportunity to meet these young people and be inspired by their determination and dedication!

More to come from the land of plenty!