Letter of Gratitute (Alisson Sudradjat Prize)

It was Monday morning, I was rushing to my pre-departure training (PDT) class in Menara Kuningan. It has been a week since the PDT class started yet I always ended up come late. With super-high determination, I woke up early that morning to be able to arrive in the class on time. I don’t want to disappoint my teacher and disturb my PDT friends, again. I stood up in front of the classroom exactly at 7.05. Not too late, I said to myself. The class has not started yet. My teacher and my friends just had an ice-breaking conversation.

Not so long after I entered the class and sat down, my teacher distributed small white envelops to some of us. My friends were curious, so was I. I could not resist not opening it.

Surprise surprice… inside the envelopes, it was the prestigious Australian Leadership Awards (ALA) and Allison Sudradjat Prize (ASA) announcement. (There were 2 people who received ALA and 3 people who received ASA in my class alone. And I am one of them.)



Among around 425 Indonesian citizens who received AAS (Australian Award Scholarship) this year, I am one out of only few 3 people who were honored this prestigious Allison Sudradjat Prize (ten other people received Australian Leadership Awards). With this prize, I can get a grant up to 25 k dollars for work placement and/or research purpose in Australia.

I understand some people might have some thoughts in their mind. Why you? What have you done? And what will you do with the prize? Here is an honest confession about my feeling after receiving the news this morning.

I personally don’t think that I am smarter neither more active than anybody else. I frankly think I have not contributed enough. In fact, I am still on my early stage of learning how to become a good practitioner in my field (environmental issues). I think when they reward me with the prize, they truly see the big potential in me and I deeply feel honor about it. Thus, I will try my best to get the most out of it; use this opportunity for the development of my country and of course for strengthening the bilateral relationship between Indo-Australia.

Finally I realize I am not a perfect human being. I made mistakes, a lot! I totally aware that receiving this prize makes people expect more from me. So I would try my best to do the best.  Thank you very much for trusting me and giving me this opportunity. Once again, thank you.


Love,


Olivia