Ni Made Ratni

Ni Made Ratni

Bali, Indonesia

28 years old

Who I am in the world: 

I am a strong woman because I can face every difficult situation in my life. I never give up and especially when I was being bullied and when I made the decision to amputate my legs when I was 14 years old. These things have made me stronger.

Before my legs were amputated, I was having lots of surgeries and the focus was always on what was wrong with my legs. After they were gone, I felt free. I could finally live. I could dance, play sports, concentrate on my studies and focus on friends for the first time in my life.

A difficult life makes me stronger and it has made me who I am now. I don’t find it easy to give up and I always want to develop myself and other people too.

I am the Chair Woman of the charitable foundation, Cahaya Mutiara. Here with the others, we develop our skills, confidence, motivation, we face the struggles of life together and we have hope for the future and a better life. 

There is not any support for disability, so we find our own funds and sponsorship. We are empowered and motivated and we share what we know and our skills.

The story that I want rewritten for women is that there is never any bullying and that people are not judged by their cover. We all have special things in our soul and should not be discriminated against because of a disability or our differences. There is a lot of hate on social media, yet we are beautiful the way that we are and we support each other.

The story I next want to tell for myself is where I have an accessible house, which is not so easy in Bali. I want to grow old, get married and have kids. I want to make a business where I help develop people with disabilities and so I can do good for my family when they get old and help to care for their financial needs.

My dream for Cahaya Mutiara is to help more members. We currently have 40 members here. We want to develop our independence, our jobs and our finances. We want to show the world that we CAN do it. We want to be both a centre for disability and have lots of able people visit so we can all share, learn, and experience happiness and knowledge. 

We don’t see difference. We see harmony. We want others to experience this and how we live and vice versa. In our exchange and collaboration we can make the world better.