Champions4Children engage for children’s rights in Indonesia

Six of the ten Champions4Children with UNICEF Indonesia Representative Gunilla Olsson, Minister of Women Empowerment and Child Protection Yohana Yembise, and MarkPlus founder Hermawan Kartajaya. 

UNICEF Indonesia and its partner Hermawan Kartajaya have launched a Champions4Children initiative, focusing on the main drivers of Indonesia’s society: Youth, Women and Netizens. During this year’s Jakarta Marketing Week, organized traditionally by Pak Hermawan’s company MarkPlus, a group of six highly influential personalities got to the stage and committed to use their clout to foster engagement for children’s rights in Indonesia. The group members (Yenny Wahid, Melanie Subono, M. Farhan, Katyana Wardhana, Dikna Faradiba, Budi Setiawan) will become catalysts for social engagement within their environment, a nucleus of a broad-based Coalition for Children, which UNICEF hopes to build in Indonesia.

In their personal capacity, the Champions will reach out and connect with key actors in government, business, civil society, the arts and academia who have the power to put children at the heart of Indonesia’s development.

UNICEF will collaborate with the Champions to raise awareness on the challenges many children are still facing in Indonesia such as violence and bullying, early marriage, malnutrition or disease. The group is already growing and other influencers are about to join, but could not participate in the event, including Veronica Colondam, Iman Usman, Dion Wiyoko, Ariyo Zidni.


The Champions4Children

Yenny Wahid

Ibu Yenny, the daughter of former President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) is a well-known advocate for inter-faith and multi-cultural dialogue. She is the Executive Director of the Wahid Institute that promotes plural and peaceful Islam. In that role she has been supporting education programmes for youth and capacity building for Muslim scholars.

A former journalist, she has been awarded Young Global Leader 2009 by The World Economic Forum and listed among The Most Influential Women in Indonesia by Globe Asia and among 10 Inspiring Women in Indonesia by FORBES Indonesia.

Melanie Subono

Melanie, who belongs to the family of former President B.J. Habibie, is an Indonesian rock star and humanitarian activist. She has already been engaged with UNICEF in the fight against open defecation through a multi-media campaign called Tinju Tinja (“Punch the Poo”). Melanie is also the Founder of Rumah Harapan (House of Hope), an initiative that supports communities including children in the areas of Education, and Water and Sanitation.

She was awarded Best Solo Female Rock Singer at the AMI Award 2008.

M. Farhan

Farhan is a highly recognized broadcaster known for his work on television and in radio. He has moderated his own TV shows and appeared in other programs including Extravaganza and Lepas Malam.

He is an Executive Member of Yayasan Cinta Anak Bangsa (YCAB), a foundation that promote healthy life style, education, and economic development to empower youth to achieve a better future


Katyana Wardhana

Katyana is the founder of Sudah Dong (It’s enough), a movement that fights bullying in school and in the cyber world. Sudah Dong is active on social media and advocates for children’s rights through seminars in schools. The NGO also collaborate with Komisi Perlindungan Anak (Child Protection Commission) to provide counselling to victims of bullying. Sudah Dong has also engaged with UNICEF in an anti-bullying campaign addressing Senior High School students in Indonesia.

Dikna Faradiba

Dikna is Miss Tourism Indonesia 2015 and Miss International representing Indonesia in Vietnam, 2016. While focusing on the promotion of Indonesia’s tourism potential she is also very active in social activities, being particularly passionate about the realization of children’s rights in Indonesia.






Budi Setiawan

Budi is the founder TemanTakita.com, a portal dedicated to explore child’s talents. It contains tips for child talent development based on research finding and case studies. He is the author of child talent books namely Anak Bukan Kertas Kosong (Children is not blank paper) and Bakat Bukan Takdir (Talent is not destiny). He is also a trainer for child talent development by providing series of training for parents and caregivers.



Additional Champions4Children

Veronica Colondam
She is the founder of Yayasan Cinta Anak Bangsa (YCAB), a foundation that empowers youth self-reliance through education and economic empowerment.

She is the youngest recipient of the United Nations Civil Society Award (2001) and was appointed Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum 2006. Forbes listed her as among 48 Asian Philanthropist and one of Ten Most Inspiring Women in Indonesia in 2014.

Iman Usman 
Iman is the co-founder of Ruangguru.com, the largest marketplace for private tutoring in Indonesia. It has linked prospective students to over 20,000 private tutors. He has also a co-founder of a number of large youth-led movements such as the Indonesian Future Leaders and the Indonesian Youth Parliament that mobilized thousands of young people for social activities.

He is a recipient, among others, the 2011 ASEAN Youth Award, the 2011 UN Youth Assembly Recognition on Humanitarian Development, the 2011 Global Teen Leader Award, and the 2010 British Council’s Global Change Maker Award.

Dion Wiyoko
Dion is one of Indonesia’s rising stars with a number of popular movies and high numbers of followers on social media.  He recently has almost 450.000 Instagram followers and 100.000 Twitter followers. Highly committed to children’s rights, he has already supported the UNICEF Tinju Tinja Campaign.

Ariyo Zidni
Ariyo is a coach, teacher and lecturer in storytelling from the University of Indonesia. riyo has been engaging for children for many years including by providing psycho-social support for victims of the 2004 tsunami in Aceh and other emergencies.