Komunitas KAHE is a non-profit organization/organization domiciled and active in the city of Maumere, Sikka Regency, East Nusa Tenggara. Komunitas KAHE is collective in nature and is engaged in the arts and culture, as an effort to be involved in strengthening democratic and socially equal civil society in Sikka Regency or the Flores region in general. Komunitas KAHE started as an online platform (Facebook Group) in 2015. This platform was used as a medium to discuss literary works and other topics related to artworks such as photography, paintings, and theater because at that time there were no group or organization that considered arts as a potential medium to bring improvement for society in Maumere. During this period, Komunitas KAHE also had a routine in person meeting with members who stayed in Maumere. KAHE also was given a chance to conduct a radio program about book discussion. In 2016, Komunitas KAHE in partnership with some artists from Kupang held a Theater Festival called ‘Maumerelogia’ which has been done every year until now. During this period, many people who had interest in arts or who were doing artworks became members of Komunitas KAHE.

Komunitas KAHE sees art and culture as a medium to produce knowledge that is dialectically related to the development of its society. Therefore, Komunitas KAHE was built as a space for learning and experimenting within a collective framework, as efforts to develop and produce knowledge using art media, as a form of involving citizens’ participation in community development and capacity building. Komunitas KAHE sees humans as the first and foremost infrastructure in every cultural work. Therefore, the main orientation of KAHE’s works is the development of human resources. One of KAHE’s achievements is the success of reviving the creation and appreciation of literature and performing arts in Sikka Regency particularly and East Nusa Tenggara in general through Maumerologia festival which has been held every year since 2016.

In addition, Komunitas KAHE was involved in mitigation and socialization projects for the 1992 Flores tsunami through art media, especially through the M7.8SR project and the publication of the book Tsunami! Tsunami! in the AntarRagam (Performing Differences) program with Teater Garasi/Garasi Performance Institute (2017-2018) which specifically reflects and discusses changes in Maumere after the 1992 Flores tsunami, providing mentoring and art literacy with children in Kojadoi Village ( 2017), became the executive producer of the Flores Art Gathering initiated by the Indonesian Art Coalition and Peace Women Across The Globe (2017), and initiated the KAHE Exhibition which accommodates fine artists in Maumere (2019). In 2017, Kikan Nong Goa together with several members of the Komunitas KAHE initiated the establishment of the Small Letter Community, a children’s community that concentrates on developing character education through visual arts activities. In 2021, Komunitas KAHE became a legal foundation meaning that some members dedicated to work full time at KAHE Community to develop programs, partnership, as well as manage the finance to support activities in Komunitas KAHE.

In 2020 Komunitas KAHE was involved in a project entitled Voicing Bajo and Bugis People in Maumere, hosted by Teater Garasi-Yogyakarta, supported by Voice. In this project we worked with indigenous people in Kampung Wuring, Maumere, Flores – NTT.

During the project, we met lots of groups in this Bajo’s community. One of them was a group of waria/shemale (they prefer to be called as waria than transgender). We asked them to join the Festival Kampung Wuring, a final presentation of our project. We made a short documentary about culinary tradition that involved Haji Mona, a leader of this waria group, and a fashion show together in the middle of the village.

The encounter with this group of waria brings conversations that input new perspectives and reflection on LGBT for KAHE. Some significant points are: 1) there are untold stories about the existence of waria in Maumere. Haji Mona from Kampung Wuring was the first initiator and leader of Perwakas (The United Waria from Sikka Regency) a group of waria in Sikka Regency, founded in 1998 and exists until now. If we look at the situation of LGBT in Maumere now we cannot deny that Perwakas play important roles on the acceptance of waria. 2) Haji Mona says that if we want to create an inclusive society, we have to make more space of encounter for the society and waria or LGBT. 3) In Maumere, there is lack of awareness from the formal education and also government to make a dissemination of knowledge about gender equality.

Based on the background above, we initiate an intensive project to create an artistic encounter between people in society, especially youth people and also groups of waria or LGBT generally. The aims of the project are 1) to create safe space for the waria/LGBT to express themselves freely and honestly; 2) to voice out the untold stories of waria or LGBT in the margins (not from big narration); 3) to effort dissemination of knowledge on LGBT and gender equality issues for the young people.

The changes that we want to manifest are 1) waria/LGBT groups have their safe space to share stories and have interaction and communication with society; 2) to create acceptance of waria/LGBT in society by sharing a good and honest campaign/stories. The stories should cover different and unique contexts and hopefully can create alternative and diverse perspectives on gender equality. 3) Dissemination of knowledge is projected to build up awareness to have respect for the difference and develop critical and inclusive discourse on gender equality issues among the young people in society.

In this project, we try to offer some solution or activities to achieve the objectives and changes such as: 1) to make an inclusive group that include waria and youth people, that can effort a regular conversation and visiting experience to each other, 2) to create an intensive workshop on gender equality or LGBT issues, 3) make a production of stories about waria or LGBT’s and present it using creative media.