The Bahasa Basudara Core Group is a diverse group of passionate people with different backgrounds from Maluku, the Netherlands and the UK. Some started as tutors, others as students, but what brought us together was our main purpose - to help our people in Maluku and across Indonesia.

With our combined professional skills, knowledge and experience, we are able to cover many areas to keep Bahasa Basudara up and running.

Jeff Malaihollo (UK) is the founder of Bahasa Basudara and has lived in the UK for many years with his wife and two children. He is involved with anything related to Bahasa Basudara and still manages to hold down a ‘proper’ job as a mining entrepreneur.

Nataly Sopacuaperu (UK) is the driving force behind the excellent Social Media team and is constantly engaged in creating ideas. Originally from the Netherlands, she has been living and working in London and has a background in event management. Her main aim is to make Bahasa Basudara a household name on a global platform.

Richard Lalihatu (NLD) is responsible for creating all our Bahasa Basudara videos. He has taught two classes and is proud that he can contribute to the development of his brothers and sisters in Maluku. He thinks that Bahasa Basudara provides a fun and accessible way to share knowledge with each other.

Ellia Wamese (IND) lives in Ambon and started as a Bahasa Basudara student. He is multi-lingual and has always been passionate about learning and teaching languages, which is why he joined Bahasa Basudara in the first place. He is our Creative Designer.

Brian Mahulette (NLD) works in the Social Media Industry. His role is to create awareness and engaging content for and about Bahasa Basudara. He is keen to share his knowledge and believes that the digital world enables us all to learn from each other - not all classrooms have four walls.

Tirsana Kailola (IND) is a passionate educator and educational program developer and has worked for the Heka Leka Education Centre since 2017. She is responsible for designing and managing teachers’ professional programs for early childhood education in Maluku. Tirsa is our social media content moderator.

Ruben Manusama (NLD) is a photographer with a good eye for design and responsible for our Visual and Graphic designs. He became a tutor because he wanted to help the people in Maluku in a more practical and direct way.

Aqul Marasabessy (IND) lives in Ambon and looks after the Instagram and Tiktok accounts. He has attended four different Bahasa Basudara courses – our current record holder. He’s a real environmental activist and cares a lot about nature and the environment.

Joaniek Vreeswijk (NLD) is our spokesperson in the Netherlands and her background in Governance, Diversity and Inclusion makes her the right person to promote Bahasa Basudara in the Dutch media.

Boya Latumahina (UK) is an Art Director and originally from the Netherlands. She is responsible for the design of our beautiful logo and certificates and together with Ruben has created our Brand Guide.

Susanne Muskita (UK) was born in the Netherlands but has lived most of her life abroad. She does most of the writing (website, blogs, proofreading, press releases) for Bahasa Basudara.

Lisa Bridges (UK) is our accountant. She grew up in Ambon and is a qualified accountant and engineer. She has worked and volunteered as a Finance Officer for various charities in the UK such as Alpha International and The Rainbow Trust. She is also a full-time mother of three. She is going to look after our financial reports and will also be in charge of our fundraising.

Afilia Tuhumury (IND) currently lives in Yogyakarta and is our Student Coordinator. She is the latest addition to our team of volunteers. She used to be a Bahasa Basudara student and has a Mining Engineering degree. Ever since she was a young child, she had shown an interest in languages. Her main task will be setting up classes for our younger students in Maluku.

If you’re interested in joining our team of volunteers and can spare some of your time, or if you have an idea or skill that you would like to share with us – then please do contact us on: [email protected].