MUD STORIES
Inspiring stories about our team members
Mora - a Bali Changemaker
11 APRIL 2024
Getting to know a Bali Changemaker: Mora Prima Siregar.
Recently the Nuanu Social Fund published the results of a study of 300 individuals engaged in projects dealing with issues such as poverty, inequality, climate change, and environmental protection. The purpose of the study was to identify and rank individuals who are leading the effort to improve the quality of life and protect the environment -- Bali Changemakers.
One person who ranked high in their study was Mora Prima Siregar, the Executive Director of MUDFISH NO PLASTIC. Mora was ranked 2nd in terms of having made a positive difference to the community, and as the 5th most well-known leader among individuals working for social change in Bali.
If you know Mora, you also know MUDFISH NO PLASTIC, the non-profit organization she founded and runs in Bali that focuses on providing education and practical solutions to educate Indonesians to say ‘No’ to single-use plastic, and ‘Yes’ to responsible waste management.
For the past six years, MUDFISH NO PLASTIC has been running environmental education workshops for students and teachers at Middle and High Schools and Universities. One geographic target of MUDFISH NO PLASTIC are people living in remote villages and coastal areas. A belief of the program is that by educating students and teachers in those areas it will reach a wider audience that includes parents, families and entire villages. To date, MUDFISH NO PLASTIC has run over 290 workshop programs for over 9,000 students, teachers, and village residents in Bali as well as other parts of Indonesia.
Mora Prima Siregar graduated from University with a degree in English Literature and pressure from her mother to find a “safe” job. But things turned out differently. As Mora explains it, “My mother kept telling me to become a teacher or work as a government employee. But I ended up becoming an environmental educator at a non-profit organization which made my mother even more annoyed because according to my mother 'it's not a real job. But we are not obliged to do what our parents expect. Some of us are able to follow our own path and find work that we love to do”.
It was when Mora moved to Bali at the age of 27 that she became aware of the problem of plastic pollution. She realized that any solution to clean the environment would be difficult to achieve as so many people ignore the problem. Moved by her belief that pollution was ruining her country and slowly killing animals and people, Mora began to reach out with her educational program. And what began as a project only dealing with plastic pollution has expanded to include workshops that provide young women, and young mothers with information that can enable them to expand their awareness and opportunities in life. In addition to plastic pollution, the MUDFISH NO PLASTIC program now includes workshops about menstrual health awareness and sex education.
Mora is truly a Bali Changemaker, and her personal goal is to become an even better educator, and to reach more people to spread awareness about important environmental, health, and personal issues that impact our country and our life.
