Mother's Day in Indonesia

December 22nd, Indonesia celebrates Mother's Day. But, it's different from the Internaitonal Mother's Day celebrated in the US and elsewhere which is celebrated on May 10th.

For Indonesia, Mother's Day is celebrated because the first women's congress was held in Yogyakarta in 1928 and was the beginning of women's emancipation in the country. Mother's Day in the US is commemorated because of the American civil war, as families were torn apart because of the war between the two sides.

While families usually let their mothers have a special day in America. In Indonesia, the event is usually celebrated by holding social events for women or by women.

One such example, is a businesswoman in Surabaya, East Java, who empathizes with the disabled. She cares enough that she is willing to teach dozens of disabled students in middle school and high school how to make purses and wallets.

Another example, of how Mother's Day is commemorated in Indonesia is by caring about the environment. There's a community which calls itself the waste separation community.

The community was established in 2020 during the pandemic because of  the amount of waste in their neighborhood in South Tangerang. Though it's still a struggle to educate people to want to care about the environment, these women area empowering their neigborhood by being the ones to care first.