RIP Santi Kusumaningrum: One of RI’s Sharpest Minds in Child Protection

One of the hardest things for a writer is when you have to pen an obituary of a person you personally know. But somebody’s got to do it, amid the outpouring tears and how your foggy post-surgery brain is scrambling for the memories you have of her. Because while you try to make sense of the grief, you want the world to know how awesome this person was and how the country just lost one of its sharpest minds.

That friend is Santi Kusumaningrum, the Director and Principal Investigator of PUSKAPA (Center on Child Protection and Wellbeing), a think-tank based at University of Indonesia. Santi died from sudden cardiac arrest on Sunday, 9 July 2023, at 23.45 p.m. in Jakarta.

To say it was shocking was an understatement. I never heard of her being ill, now a source of deep regret for not having checked up on her in a long while, apart from our short exchanges of DM or chat.

We first knew each other from Twitter, when we joined  around the same time in 2009, back when the social media platform was still fun and harmless. Her witty and sassy one-liners caught my attention and after following each other online, we then became friends in real life. We weren’t that close, but we were more than mere acquaintance, as we shared a penchant for dad jokes and celebrity culture.

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As anyone who had met her would testify, she would be one the sharpest people you have ever met. Her words were super articulate, structured, but never condescending nor patronizing. It was through her that I became more informed about the issues of child protection and wellbeing, a field that Santi had been working in consistently in the past two decades.

One of those smart girls who attended top schools in Jakarta, Santi graduated from Criminology Department in University of Indonesia (Class of 1995), before obtaining her master’s degree in Sociology from the same university, and PhD on Public Health from Columbia University, New York.

She worked as research assistant at UI before becoming a Child Protection Officer at UNICEF Indonesia, Planning Coordinator and Adjunct Professor at Columbia, and eventually  the head of PUSKAPA. In her own words, she has been working to inform public policies through research and program interventions, so that these policies facilitate better access for children and families to health, education, protection and social services.

She conducted researches to provide evidence into policy proposals, assisted policymakers in implementing and evaluating those policies, and mobilized young people’s capacity to reform Indonesia’s protection and care system, civil registration and data governance, and access to justice—all so everyone could thrive. In the academic world, Santi seeks to build scientific and ethical rigors in social justice.

Santi was keen on putting Indonesia on the global map. She sought more collaborative and interdisciplinary research in Indonesia from which knowledge should be made accessible, and insights should inform actions around the globe.

She was actively disseminating her thoughts on writing, and she was that rare academics who could write both “serious” papers and more playful essays. Magdalene has had the honor to publish several of her writings, including one that highlighted the irony of being a child protection advocate who had never wanted a kid for herself.

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As a woman leader, she has been a great role model for younger women and her peers, myself included. Santi was the embodiment of the Athena model of leadership that Magdalene has been campaigning through womenlead.magdalene.co. Santi truly lived authentically, living out of her convictions, continually sought to understand and develop herself, leading with empathy, embracing and encouraging others. You can tell from her subordinates how much they looked up to her, and she was such a great mentor. Anyone working in gender field knows how important it is for women to have a good woman mentor.

As a friend, she was one of the kindest. She was that pretty and brilliant girl that you could not hate because she was nice, and also outgoing, funny, and goofy, even. She would reach out to you first if she sensed you were in a tough situation, and would offer you comfort. She was generous and supportive, always saying yes when I needed help, from asking her to write articles to being a moderator, or small things like contacting that online seller who sold exercise outfit that we loved so much.

We have lost a sharp mind, a great mentor, and a kind and generous friend. You are irreplaceable, Santi. The shoes are too big to fill, but we hope that we could carry on your work that have inspired us so much.

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