Our incredible Indonesian director Maria Maail joins A Liquid Future Australia board of directors!

Maria teaching students in Bido, Morotai about the importance of ocean safety

To further strengthen our a unique model, A Liquid Future Australia invited our Indonesian national director, Maria Maail to join the board of directors.  Both Indonesian and Australian teams see this as a means to bring even greater efficiency, understanding and innovation to our organisations in Indonesia and Australia enabling us to keep costs low and impact high. A seamless fit.

The step underlines our commitment to Ethics, Sustainability and Governance and the importance we place on diversity, inclusion and gender equity. Our founder Lizzie Murray and Maria have always shared a very close relationship with Lizzie living with Maria’s family for four years in Morotai.  Mirroring the structure of A Liquid Future in Indonesia, this action mirrors the founding sentiments of A Liquid Future, a shared, co-created entity that blends Western and Indonesian know-how and ideas, producing relatable, innovative projects that really create impact. 

Being registered as an NGO in Indonesia first and later as an international NGO in Australia, is a model that is performing exceptionally well experience is demonstrating.  As an Indonesian NGO we enjoy excellent relations with government ministries rather than relying on Memorandums of Understanding with the government which is the case for International NGOs.  These are complex, subject to change and much time can be lost negotiating them and then waiting for their approval. 

Having set up in Indonesia first we have a real understanding of what communities want and need and how to meet these needs in a relatable way.  We solved a problem together, in context from a lived experience.  We are not an international NGO with a certain agenda arriving to show people what to do.  Furthermore our teams comprise locals of the communities we operate in. This means they are known and trusted by locals, are knowledgeable on local ways of doing things, and during the pandemic did not need to be evacuated as they were at home. This meant we kept operating when other NGOs had to stop and we didn’t lose any funds paying for expensive evacuations. 

When we asked Maria how she felt she explained, “I am very happy to share my thoughts and ideas with the board and be involved in the decision making process, so together we can continue to build on our innovative and impactful organisation”.  Ayo ALF!