Nani Zulminarni

I started working on women empowerment at the grassroots level in 1987, as a field worker at The Center for Women’s Resources Development (PPSW). I gained experiences as a grassroots women organizer, community trainer, facilitator, project coordinator, and program manager during my time in PPSW. In 1995, I was appointed as Director and served until 2000.

In 2001, I founded PEKKA (Women Headed Family Empowerment) to build a prominent grassroots movement that empowers women individually and collectively to transform their lives and communities, challenge the perceptions of widows, and dismantle structures and belief systems that breed discrimination and poverty. PEKKA has offered exceptional support to women who are widows, divorcees, abandoned, those whose husbands are disabled or ill, and single women, helping them recognize themselves as capable of making important contributions to society, and creating new roles, individually and collectively.

Until 2024, PEKKA has accompanied more than 100,000 women heads of families in over 1,600 villages, spanning 27 of 38 provinces in Indonesia. In 2016, I started a new initiative, Akademi Paradigta Indonesia (API), a community-based women’s leadership training program. Since its establishment, approximately 500 women villagers graduate from API annually and become leaders in their own villages.

After completing my 20 years of leadership, I transitioned to becoming the chair of the executive board in PEKKA. I then joined ASHOKA, a global social entrepreneurship organization, as a member of the Leadership Global Management team and a regional director of Ashoka South East Asia. I lead the Ashoka team to build the Everyone a Changemaker Movement (EACH) through Family Changemaking (Gaharu Keluarga), Young Changemaking (Gaharu Muda), and the Spiritual Changemaking Initiative (SICI).

I co-founded networks of NGOs promoting women’s rights and advancing policy reforms, including ASPPUK (Association of NGOs for Women Entrepreneurs), ALIMAT (a network of activists and Islamic scholars for family justice in the Muslim context), FAMM-INDONESIA (Young Women Activists Forum), JASS (Just Associates), and JASS-South East Asia (championing women’s rights and movement building). I have played leadership roles in networks such as ASPBAE (Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education) and the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE).

I graduated from the Faculty of Fishery, Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB), Indonesia in 1985, and received my Master of Sociology (MS) from the Faculty of Social Science, North Carolina State University, USA, in 1993.