This Papuan song, sung during a traditional ceremony in offering to the heavens, was the opening number of the
PARARA Festival. Young Papuan elementary school children, with wide-eyed expectation to see the Jakarta they
only read about in school books, were on stage performing like they had done it a hundred times before. They were
confident, clear and proud to share the new knowledge from a Papuan school, making sure they wouldn’t forget the
traditional knowledge of their people. Yadupa, an indigenous Papuan organization, had brought the 25 children to
Jakarta for the PARARA Festival, an event that celebrates traditional cultural expressions such as woven fabrics,
baskets, and other bounties that mother earth and their ancestors have given the people of Indonesia.

Green Intermediaries