The EngageMedia Team
Airani Sasanti – Administration and Finance Officer (Yogyakarta)
Born in Indonesia, Airani started working in 2008 as a content writer and journalist in the Visit Indonesian Year event. In the same year, she worked as an administration assistant in kotakhitam forum, an independent organisation which focuses on research, workshops, and documentary film production for social change in Indonesia.
In 2015, she joined documentary production house Banjarsari Film, where she worked as an assistant producer, responsible for pre-production design and planning, and as an administration coordinator for the film, ‘Di Kaliurang’.
As Administration and Finance Officer at EngageMedia, Airani’s role is to support the work of the Finance and Administration Coordinator, Operations Coordinator, and to provide logistical support to project managers.
Languages: English, Bahasa Indonesia, Javanese
Andrew Lowenthal – Executive Director
Andrew has been working in the field of media and technology activism since 1998 when he joined community television show Access News in Melbourne, Australia. His work traverses the fields of organisational development, video production, network building, research, software development, and project and event management.
Andrew was active in the Indymedia network from 2000-2006. From 2006-08 he worked with the UK based Tactical Technology Collective as their Participatory Media Project Lead, editing the NGO-in-a-box and Message-in-a-box open source communications toolkits.
Andrew was previously a Fellow at Harvard's Film Studies Center and Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and MIT's Open Documentary Lab. In 2015 he was a Ford Foundation JustFilm's Fellow.
Languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Bahasa Indonesia
Darika Bamrungchok - Digital Rights Coordinator (Bangkok)
Darika has been involved in human rights advocacy and activism in Thailand since the 2006 military coup d'état. She started her career in journalism and conducted sporadic research work in the field of international relations.
She also holds a Master's degree in Public Administration from the Central European University in Budapest, with a specialisation in human rights advocacy and digital media under modern authoritarian regimes. In Hungary, she worked for a year-long consultancy project, “Citizenship Education in Fragile Democracies,” which covered Hungary, Kosovo, Albania and Poland.
Prior to joining EngageMedia, Darika worked as a Campaign Coordinator for Amnesty International Thailand. She has experience in developing and implementing strategies and campaigns for human rights defenders; as well as leading numerous capacity building and training for activists in the field of human rights education and campaigns.
Languages: Thai, English
Dianne Olivan – Program Assistant (Manila)
Dianne obtained her degree in Communication Research from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 2016. As a student-activist, she availed opportunities to (co-)organize various events tackling issues on gender equality, freedom of information, agrarian reform and accessible education.
As a freelance researcher and writer, she assisted in several development research projects organised by civil society organizations, such as the National Union of Bank Employees and HealthJustice Philippines. From May 2016 to September 2017, Dianne worked for the Third World Studies Center as a full-time research assistant for a government-funded project on mass transportation.
As EngageMedia's Program Assistant, Dianne’s role is to ensure efficient and effective collaboration with partners for initiatives related to Digital Rights and Video for Change. She also provides logistical, outreach, and research support for both of the programs.
Languages: English, Filipino, Hiligaynon
King Catoy - Video For Change Coordinator (Manila)
King Catoy is an independent documentary filmmaker and alternative media practitioner in the Philippines. His roots in activism started as a student leader in the University of the Philippines Los Baños, where he took up Development Communication. He studied 16mm film documentary at the Mowelfund Film Institute in Quezon City, Philippines and went on to co-found the film collective Southern Tagalog Exposure in 2001.
In 2009, he became executive director of Mayday Multimedia, a video collective focusing on workers issues, and in 2012, became multimedia director of the non-profit media group PinoyMedia Center Inc. He currently sits on the Board of Directors of AlterMidya- People’s Alternative Media Center, a national network of independent and grassroots-based media outfits in the Philippines. He has also worked on several video advocacy projects with Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific.
He has directed numerous videos and trained indigenous and urban poor communities and alternative media practitioners on video production.
Languages: English, Filipino
Mahani – Finance and Administration Manager (Yogyakarta)
Mahani was born in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where she has also started her career working as a finance officer for a national NGO in 1994. She has been in the same field for 26 years, working for international organisations such as Oxfam, Arbeiter Samariter Bund and Conservation International.
She has extensive experience in supporting programs, particularly in finance and operations. In her previous involvements, Mahani has also been the focal point for high-level finance transactions and donor contract management, regulation development for partners, partner financial management, capacity building, reporting, monitoring and anti-fraud awareness, among others.
In her free time, she actively pursues outdoor activities such as camping and mountain climbing.
Languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Javanese, English
Nica Dumlao – Digital Rights Coordinator (Manila)
Nica is a feminist activist who has been involved in the social justice movement since she entered the University of the Philippines in 2002. She started to work on the intersection of human rights and information and communications technologies in 2008, organizing a series of discussions among workers in the business process outsourcing industry.
Nica led the crafting of the Philippine Declaration on Internet Rights & Principles and the convening of the Future of PHInternet, the first ever Philippine multistakeholder forum on internet governance, human rights, and development when she was the Internet Rights Program Manager of the Foundation for Media Alternatives. She currently sits in the steering committee of the Philippine Internet Freedom Alliance (PIFA), the broadest nationwide alliance of Internet freedom advocates in the country, that challenged the unconstitutional provisions of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 before the Supreme Court. She is also Board Secretary of the ASEAN SOGIE Caucus.
As Digital Rights Coordinator in EngageMedia, Nica oversees its initiatives to expand and strengthen the digital rights movement in Southeast Asia.
Languages: English, Filipino
Nikholas Borang – Engagement and Learning Specialist (Yogyakarta)
Borang Yerry Niko is an independent journalist based in Yogyakarta. While studying in university in 1998, he joined the student democracy movement and produced several propaganda bulletins. From 1999, working with publishers in Yogyakarta, he helped translate several English books on politics and literature into Indonesian, including Orwell's Animal Farm.
In 2004 he participated in early meetings to rebuild Indymedia Jakarta. He worked as a radio/web/video journalist for more than six years at vhrmedia.com. During that time, he also worked with community radio and media networks.
Languages: English, Bahasa Indonesia, Javanese, Manadonese
Nun Afra Farhanggi – Program Assistant (Yogyakarta)
Nuna is a passionate person who active in many organization as secretary, public relation officer, co-trainer and coordinator events. She was graduated in 2016 from Sociology department, during college she was active in Aceh dance community as dancer and manager in Rampoeugm Community. She joined in International Folklore Festival 2014th which held by CIOFF and UNESCO in Europe. At the same time she active as campus journalist, co-leadership trainer and social volunteer. In 2016 she was volunteer in Indonesian Kidney Donor Yogyakarta and before join at Engagemedia, she was joined in International Refugee Service Organization (Jesuit Refugee Service).
As EngageMedia's Program Assistant, Nuna’s role is to supports the implementation of EngageMedia's initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Indonesia. The position works closely with Program Leads to support coordination and logistics, communications and outreach, and monitoring and reporting.
Languages: English, Bahasa Indonesia, Javanese
Pratamanita Ayu – Finance and Administration Assistant (Yogyakarta)
Ayu holds a Bachelor's Degree in Archeology. After graduation in 2016, she started working as an educator in a private museum in Yogyakarta where she became aware of labour rights and fought for her colleagues. That experience motivated her to work in organisations for social cause.
She was an awardee for Erasmus Mundus scholarship in 2011 under MAHEVA project in University of Warsaw. Her interests include history, museums, languages, food, and volunteering. Before joining EngageMedia she joined WAU!Project as volunteer to teach English in villages on the slope of Mt. Merapi. She is currently involved in the Jogja SDGs community as voluntary field officer.
Ayu's role in EngageMedia is to support the work of the Finance and Operations team, and also provide logistical support for Project Managers.
Language: Bahasa Indonesia, English, Sundanese, Javanese, Polish, French
Pitra Hutomo – Project Coordinator: Indonesia (Yogyakarta)
Pitra Hutomo was born and raised in Jakarta. She moved to Yogyakarta in 2002 to pursue a degree in Earth Sciences. Pitra worked for the Indonesian Visual Art Archive (IVAA) for more than 10 years, where she was the coordinator of research as well as the acting director. She joined EngageMedia in 2017 following her role as logistics coordinator for the Camp COCONET.
Being trained as archivist and systems analyst, Pitra helped the foundation of IVAA's Online Inventory on Indonesian Modern and Contemporary Art documents. The experience brought her to programs such as Travelling Fellow of Asia Cultural Council, Research Fellow under French Cultural Centre Indonesia and Archivist Exchange under Australia's Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Her non professional initiatives comprise of documentary making practices under collectives such as Video Report, Hyphen and Uripurup where she advocates substantive land rights and rights to the city for marginalised communities.
Languages: Bahasa Indonesia, English, Javanese, Sundanese, French.
Red Tani- Impact and Engagement Manager (Manila)
Red Tani has advocated critical thinking, evidence-based legislation, religious freedom, and other human rights since 2009, when he founded Filipino Freethinkers. Their advocacy has been featured in Philippine and international media, receiving awards such as the Globe Tatt award and the Rappler Do More award.
His advocacy continues as a representative in the RH Law national implementation team, as a founding member of Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network, and as part of various organizations working on sexual and reproductive health and rights, feminism and gender equality, and freedom of speech and religion.
Passionate about the power of stories and storytelling for advocacy, he shares fiction-based techniques for writing, speaking, and presenting in lectures and workshops around the Philippines.
He joins EngageMedia to develop ethical alternatives to mainstream social media, empowering advocates to tell impactful stories through video.
Languages: English, Filipino
Rezwanul Islam – Communications and Outreach Coordinator (Kuala Lumpur)
Rezwanul Islam has long experience in the field of citizen and social media. For more than 15 years, he has been writing for local and international citizen media sites/blogs. He is a longtime contributor to Global Voices, an international non-profit citizen media organization and leads its newsroom for South Asia. He previously worked as a jury at the Deutsche Welle Best of The Blogs (BOBS) Awards and also worked for Al Jazeera Plus as a node editor for South Asia.
As a freelancer researcher, translator, and consultant, he has contributed to different advocacy and human rights projects over the years. He has experience in developing communications strategies and campaigns for non-profits. In Bangladesh, his work experience includes serving as a consultant for UNDP in different projects, especially for Citizen’s Voice (Nagorik Kontho), a citizen journalism portal.
He had lived in a number of cities in the Asia Pacific region such as Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Canberra in the past decade.
Languages: Bengali, English, German
Widy Dinarti – Organisational Development Manager (Jakarta)
Widy Dinarti is a social impact innovator and an impactful life and cross cultural coach. After obtaining a Bachelor's Degree in International Relations from University of Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia, she has conducted social and humanitarian projects in collaboration with variety of organisations, both in non-profit and private, at a local and international level in India, South East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Indian Ocean regions.
Widy was also a recipient of several awards including the Deutsche Post DHL Global Corporate Responsibility Awards in 2015 for her Youth Employability Project in South Africa and Youth Business Incubator Project in Uganda. Recently, she was selected to represent Indonesia in HANDs! Asia Project, a Japan Foundation Fellowship Programme in creative and innovative education for humanity; and as one of the fellows for IDEAS 6.0 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Executive Education Programme.
Widy also supports startups and social enterprises in their organizational development and business development projects.
Languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Javanese, English.
