Putri Maha Lima is director of politics, education and publicity for one of Indonesia’s regional parliaments. Her job involves a lot of writing. In this interview she explains how she attended a training seminar at the Academy in order to improve her writing skills for project offers. As a result her texts are now clearer and more structured.
What is it that makes your work difficult?
We don’t have enough staff. And in addition, I don’t have the writing skills for preparing the teaching materials and the publicity texts that we regularly produce.
What would you like to improve?
I would like to receive as much training as possible, not only to improve my writing skills, but also to learn HR management, because there are a number of staff members in my department for whom I am responsible.
You attended the training course ‘Project Proposal Writing with LogFrame’. Why?
Because we are developing a project right now that is totally new for our institution, and I didn’t really know what a well written project proposal could look like.
What did you learn during the seminar?
I was able to internalise the principle of cause and effect, which now helps me take a more structured approach to the process of writing. Now my texts flow better. I especially liked the fact that our trainer got us to take a critical look not only at our own texts, but also texts by other participants. That helped me a lot in improving my writing style.
How does your institution benefit from your improved skills?
It benefits because now I am more productive when I have to prepare teaching and publicity materials. And we have now started sending out applications for financial support for our planned project.
One last question: where do you see yourself working ten years from now?
I would like to be one of the members of parliament for whom I work at the moment – a policy-maker.