It’s that time of the year to look back and reflect on what has been achieved during the past 12 months and what remains undone. One thing for sure is that 2020 will forever be remembered both here and elsewhere when well-laid plans went astray as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We had a promising start: hosting at the beginning of the year a writing training program in Jayapura, capital of the easternmost province of Papua. It was a packed house as young Papuans grabbed this rare opportunity. Our sponsors were so enthused by the results that they decided to fund similar events in other parts of the province where literacy rates lag far behind other parts of Indonesia. But then the pandemic crashed upon us and everything had to be put on hold.
The following months were spent in search of ways and means to stay afloat. Through much trial and error, we followed the trend of going online with our public outreach programs. In November, with funding from the Cultural Facilitation Program of the Directorate General for Culture of the Ministry of Education and Culture we hosted Lontar’s first virtual literary festival. With its theme being “Literary Breakthrough,” the five-day festival, held in collaboration with JakTent (Jakarta Content Week) featured 23 events, including book launches, talk shows, and documentary film screenings. Topics of discussion ranged from ethnicity to gender expression and sexual orientation. Intended to promote Lontar and, with that, the sale of our books, the festival fell short of the latter goal but far exceeded our expectations in terms of outreach, attracting as it did more than 6,000 viewers from 40 countries.
Despite this evidence of Lontar’s large and enthusiastic following, the year has been one very long struggle to make ends meet as sponsorships and donations (our main bread and butter as a non-profit, non-governmental organization) have dwindled to a trickle. Now, at the year ends, Lontar must face the harsh reality that without exponential growth in contributions, certain activities—such as the publication of new books—must be placed on the back-burner. Thus we appeal to all our friends and supporters to help Lontar in this hour of need. Please give generously.
We wish you all a safe, healthy and improved prospects for the New Year 2021.
PS: The language of most events in the Lontar Literary Festival was Indonesian but most of them are now available for viewing on YouTube.
Yuli Ismartono
yismartono@lontar.org