Sunday, November 3rd, 2019, was a historic day for Titian Foundation scholarship active recipients and alumni at Bayat. This trip to Yogyakarta to see a movie was a first-time experience for most of Titian Foundation scholarship students. A week before the movie screening in Yogyakarta, the beneficiaries from Titian’s other Scholarship site, Tangerang Selatan plus Titian alumni working in Jakarta, were also invited to see the movie.

This movie screening was made possible by Ibu Lindra Widjojo, so that those present were able to see the journey of a small-town girl with startling talent in badminton from Tasikmalaya, called Susi Susanti. The movie followed her life through to the time she won world acclaim by winning Indonesia’s first Olympic gold medal in 1992. The hope is that our students are going to be inspired by her hard work and determination. We required four buses to whisk these students away to Yogya and the trip was a lot of fun for them, as students asked a lot about the name of tall buildings in Yogya and all the excitement and anticipation when entering the cinema studio.

The largest studio in the theatre was reserved for Titian, with 293 seats fully occupied by our scholarship students and alumni. Happy and bewildered looks could be seen on their faces as they set foot into a cinema studio for the first time, gleefully helping each other distribute tickets and even locating their seat number became part of an exciting adventure.

The movie screening started with opening remarks by the MC and playing a quiz as an ice breaker. The movie started at 2pm and they enjoyed every single scene in the movie. There was passage of dialogue in it that made such a lasting impression in the mind of students. It was a conversation between Susi and her father in a bus where Susi asked her father the meaning of badminton term “love all”. Although it technically means the score is 0-0, her father offers a more meaningful description, which is to love every aspect of the game, not just the game itself, and also to love one’s opponent, the audience and most importantly to love yourself. So, Love All has become a hit term often articulated by Titian scholarship students since the visit.

After watching the Susi Susanti movie, students took part in a review/comment competition that was arranged by Titian facilitators. Students had to write a few lines on the impression they had and list all the points they learned from the movie; posting them on social media. Of the 200 Titian scholarship recipients that took part in the competition, 15 were selected as winners.

One of the Generation 11 Titian scholarship students, Wulan Fitriana wrote “Her high sense of nationalism made me realize that a sense of nationalism and effort are two things that are closely related. Because effort without a sense of nationalism will have no meaning. Likewise, Nationalism without effort will never allow a country to move forward!! We, as the young generation, can take Susi Susanti as an example of resiliency and endurance.”
Sharing the same sentiments with Wulan, Nisa Salma from Generation 12 wrote, “This Susi Susanti movie is very inspirational to me. The story of her struggle from zero to hero. The term “love all” is to permeate love in all aspects of life, not limiting it solely to romantic relationships. There are many values that I can learn from the movie, one of which is to continue to love Indonesia wherever I am and whatever its conditions may be, and make a contribution to advancing Indonesia by never giving up and being highly disciplined just like Susi Susanti.”

There are so many values that can be taken away from the Susi Susanti movie, but the ones that strike a chord are to have a spirit of nationalism and high resilience as demonstrated by Susi Susanti herself. (NF)