There is one moment that Dwi Preti Natalia Tara'u, better known as Yenni, a 2024 member of Komunitas Setara under Generasi Setara (GenSet)—Kopernik's initiative to challenge traditional gender norms and advance gender equality—will never forget.
During a gathering in Tentena, Poso, Central Sulawesi, young people from Buyukatedo Hamlet and Mayakeli Village—two communities that had long carried narratives of mutual distrust—sat together in the same group. They laughed together. They worked on activities together. For the first time, there were no invisible barriers between them. For Yenni, that moment answered a question she had carried with her for a long time.
A Concern Rooted in Reality
Yenni is a lecturer at Tentena Christian University, Poso, Central Sulawesi, who has long been engaged with issues of gender equality and post-conflict peacebuilding.
One day, she participated in a small community survey on gender inequality. The findings were striking. Women and men worked side by side as farmers, doing the same tasks, yet women were paid less. Men rarely took part in household chores—not because they refused to, but because they believed they were "not skilled" at them. Women were widely seen as naturally weak, while men were expected to be strong, simply because "that's how things have always been."
The experience deepened her conviction that young people in rural communities needed a space to explore gender equality—not through lectures, but through conversations that encouraged them to think critically and reflect on their own experiences.
Finding the Right Opportunity Through GenSet
Toward the end of 2024, an open call appeared on Yenni's Instagram feed.
GenSet is a Kopernik initiative that brings together young people from across Indonesia to champion gender equality and inclusion. Selected participants become members of Komunitas Setara, a safe and collaborative community where young changemakers exchange ideas, support one another, and advocate for gender equality. Members are also invited to submit proposals for community-based initiatives, with selected projects receiving support from Kopernik for implementation.
Yenni immediately felt the programme had been created for someone like her.
After being selected, she joined an intensive five-day workshop in Bali alongside academics, practitioners, and gender experts. One reflection stayed with her more than anything else: communities do not lose members simply because people leave—they lose them when people's voices are never truly heard.
Yenni and fellow Komunitas Setara members during the workshop in Ubud, Bali
She returned home carrying that lesson with her. Together with close friends and her university students, she developed a proposal for GenSet's small grants programme. The proposal was selected for support, laying the foundation for what would become Sekolah Setara (School of Equality).
From the Classroom to Building Bridges Across Communities
One of Sekolah Setara's activities bringing together young people from Buyukatedo Hamlet and Mayakeli Village
The name Sekolah Setara was chosen intentionally. "We wanted to change how young people think about school—not as a place where you simply sit and listen, but as a space for active reflection, participation, and enjoyment," Yenni explained.
The programme focused on two groups of young people who had grown up separated from one another: teenagers from Buyukatedo Hamlet, mostly Muslim, and those from Mayakeli Village, mostly Christian. Both communities continue to live with the lingering memories of the Poso conflict.
Rather than beginning with lessons, the Sekolah Setara team first met with village leaders and prospective participants simply to listen—to understand what they already knew and what they did not. The conversations quickly revealed that even basic concepts such as "inclusion" were unfamiliar to many participants. As a result, the team redesigned the entire curriculum from the ground up. "We didn't simply adopt GenSet's four core themes. Instead, we designed our own curriculum based on what we learned directly from conversations in the villages," Yenni s