I joined SMERU as its first Australian Volunteers International (AVI) volunteer in 2000. I was keen to support its important work on understanding poverty and other aspects of well-being during the first years of Indonesia's political transition, during which time Indonesia was also experiencing the impacts of the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s. It was one of the few trusted organizations conducting mixed-method on-the-ground research on poverty, cash transfers, and the rollout of decentralization at the time. This information was so important for informing policies and programs to tackle poverty.
I loved my time when I first worked at SMERU—it was a formative time for me and I am grateful for everything SMERU taught me, including how to be an effective field researcher! The team was warm and welcoming, and most importantly, was undertaking critical and inspiring work. It was wonderful to be able to contribute to that. Since that time, I have been lucky to continue to engage with SMERU in many ways as a part of a network of partners involved in the Knowledge Sector Initiative in Indonesia through providing initial peer feedback on many of its research projects on, for example, women's empowerment, and through SMERU's engagement with the University of Melbourne. SMERU has gone from strength to strength over the past two decades and I hope it will continue to play an important role in research and in informing policies in Indonesia for the decades to come.
