Why you can't teach tolerance
Meiske Wahyu |
TEDxUbud
• May 2018
Indonesia is a country built on multiculturalism and tolerance with its 17,000+ islands and 260 million people, it is even written in the country's founding philosophy the Pancasila—but understanding your neighbours isn’t always straight forward and intolerance takes the opportunity to raise its ugly head.
In 2013, along with her co-founders, Meiske Demitria Wahyu founded a non-profit, student exchange program called Sabang Merauke to promote tolerance between religions in Indonesia. Each year, Sabang Merauke picks 15 students from remote areas in Indonesia to spend two weeks in Jakarta with a family with a different faith to theirs, to meet people in the program and most importantly to learn about diversity.
Being from a Chinese/Christian background this is a subject close to Meiske’s heart and she is determined to show people the futility of the prejudices people can hold on to, especially on the 20th anniversary of the 1998 riots.