International Helper Area 1 Report – 2021

The Area 1 dewan was not able to travel in 2021, with the exception of Sudarmadji and Suryadi joining Isti in Portugal for the International Helper meeting in October. Hussein, Hermina and Rohmana joined daily via Zoom.

All communication continued virtually, and as members became comfortable with technology, more events became available. Through Zoom we attended the Australian Congress in January, Indonesia’s 74th anniversary in February, Malaysia’s AGM and kejiwaan gathering in June, and Zone 8’s two-day kejiwaan weekend and MSF’s 30th anniversary in August.

We also took part in the joint Wings sharing meeting in September, and a SICA gathering.

In November we started a series of meetings with our Kejiwaan Councilors and Committee Councilors to discuss preparations needed for World Congress. In December we joined the Zone 1 & 2 meeting and the Subud Youth e-Gathering.

Overcoming challenges

Many of our members were still unable to attend group latihan due to COVID restrictions, and so continued doing latihan at home, usually at a set time. Several active WhatsApp groups further supported connection with dewans and between Kejiwaan Councilors and countries.

Helpers were encouraged to keep in touch with all members to make sure they were managing, and to maintain a feeling of closeness with our Subud family. Towards the end of the year, some countries opened up and group latihan resumed.

In conjunction with the WSA Executive, we supported a series of weekly consultative meetings with groups in India to encourage a sense of working together to establish a constitution based on Bapak’s guidelines. A positive outcome of this was initiating Tamil translations of Bapak’s and Ibu’s talks.

Supporting the kejiwaan

We prepared the WSC two-day gathering in January, and throughout the year attended and supported regular Zoom meetings, with latihan beforehand, of the WSA board of directors and WSC, and as liaisons for Ibu’s Office, Archives, White Book, MSF, SICA, SYAI and WCOT.

We also held support latihans for female WSA office holders in our Area, for Area 1 female KCs, the Archives team, and India. Several countries are still participating in the Area 1 latihan.

We encourage all members we interact with to join Subud Library, and our dewan has supported the translation of “Advice and Guidance for Bapak’s Helpers” into Bahasa Indonesia. We are especially grateful to Subud Indonesia who make Bapak’s Talks available twice daily to everyone via Zoom.