She Didn't Create the Demand, She Built the Space

Cover Credit: Advocare

What would you do if you wanted to take action for something you care about, but you were still a student in high school?

For Adelaine Callista Suliawan, founder and president of Advocare, it was never really a question of what. It was a question of how.

She was in grade 10 when she first went to Bantar Gebang, the landfill settlement east of Jakarta, with friends from BINUS School Bekasi, the international school she attends, 20 minutes away. The children she met at an orphanage nearby could not read fluently. Adelaine went back to class the next day.

"How come this is our life, that we have a good quality of education, and this is their life," she told Twibbonize last Saturday (9/19).

That question became the beginning of Advocare, a nonprofit that focuses on narrowing the literacy gap among Indonesia's youth. Established in 2025, the organization has just entered its second year and has drawn more than 10,000 volunteers and organizers.

Advocare landed on the trending page of our platform with two campaigns earlier this month. The first is Advocare Education Series: Dear Future Me in PTN, and the second is Advocare Education Series: Dear Future Me in Overseas. Together they pulled over 3,000 supporters. Both belong to one event, Dear Future Me, which drew students in their last year of high school and others about to begin their journey to universities.

And if you haven't caught this already, Adelaine acted as both organizer and participant, because she is still in grade 12 herself.

The perception she wished to challenge

Adelaine had no experience running an organization. "I was not even accepted as a member of the student council," she said with a laugh. She did not treat that as a reason not to start Advocare.

The name signals the organization's dual focus. Advocacy is the awareness work, mostly on social media. Care is what happens in a room with people in it. She stapled them together into Advocare because she had watched the first half happen without the second. She had been active in the debate club as well as Model United Nations, which teach their members to speak fluently about justice. She had never once worked in the field.

Underneath that sat the belief she set out to break: "Mostly, the perception that young people have [on their mind] is, 'I have no money, I have no power, I'm still young, not an adult. So I really can't do anything.' And I want to challenge that."

Advocare started small. Her mother sponsored the first activity with buku ajaib, or "talking books," from the family toy business. The talking books are storybooks with audio, so readers can hear the English words for the objects in the story. Advocare then used these books to teach English to the children at Domyadhu orphanage in Jatimakmur.

"Act to Care," a program with Domyadhu Orphanage by Advocare. The child at the center is holding a "talking book." Credit: Advocare

This first activity was also a collaboration with another initiative, JejakBaik.org, and Adelaine recalled that Advocare's early programs were "still in small scale."

The decision that changed Advocare

Then in 2026 Advocare made the call that mattered, and it was a subtraction.

"I have helped the children in Jabodetabek (the greater part of Jakarta), but I don't think this [action] is the most needed one."

Adelaine (wearing pale mint vest) during one of Advocare's programs. Credit: Advocare 

Her read was that plenty of volunteer initiatives already existed in that area. However, for people her age, outside Greater Jakarta, there were comparatively fewer places to go. So instead of scaling up her own programs, Adelaine opened chapters in other regions and handed the leadership over.

The first chapter opened in Kalimantan. Advocare went on to open chapters in more than twenty cities, including Surabaya, Medan, Malang, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Lombok, Solo, and even Abu Dhabi. Each one has its own leader, six-month plan, and two-event minimum. She screens the leaders, briefs them, then steps back into an advisory role. One more detail: the people Adelaine ends up guiding through a chapter launch are sometimes university students older than she is.

Opening chapters also lines up with the spike in Advocare's Instagram following. Her explanation for what happened next is the whole story in a sentence.

"I think the reason why [the following] had a huge spike is because people in these areas felt, 'oh, finally there is a volunteering space for them. Finally there is one in my city.'"

Instagram went from around 3,000 followers in July to over 20,000 in August. The volunteer network now sits above 10,000 members. And each chapter designs its own program according to what it sees fit for its community.

Among these chapters, Adelaine shared the story of the Lombok chapter visiting Batu Putih State Elementary School on Gili Asahan island. As shown in the chapter's Instagram Story highlights, the team had to take a boat to reach the school. Adelaine mentioned that the teachers and even the students still have to pay boat fare themselves, and when the boat breaks down, they cannot get to school.

Adelaine put a focus on the remoteness and the lack of infrastructure. It sharpened the thing that drove her in the first place, the education gap in this country, which she might never have seen up close without starting Advocare.

And that is the point of this subtraction. Each community has its own knowledge of what works best there.

The Frame nobody had to wear

Dear Future Me was part of an educational webinar series that Advocare ran this year, split into two tracks: one for people planning to apply to state universities at home, one for those applying abroad.

Adelaine emphasized that Dear Future Me was not simply about hearing other people's stories of how they got into a good university. It was also about envisioning what you want to be in the future by going to a university you have in mind. Hence, "Dear Future Me."

Four speakers were invited for each track, all of them students at top universities, and thousands signed up.

And here is what drew Twibbonize to the organization in the first place. Dear Future Me was announced and promoted on Advocare's official Instagram. Everyone who wished to participate was required to fill out the Google Form for the event, and at the end of that form a Twibbon link was provided. But the Twibbon was not part of a requirement.

The result? Over 3,000 in total used the Twibbon of each university track under the hashtags that Advocare prepared, one of them is #advocaresindonesia, which they voluntarily shared in their own Instagram profiles.

And her reaction is not pride in the number, rather, she is relieved.

"I am very grateful and surprised that they wear the Twibbon, that they don't feel burdened to do it. Like, 'I'm not embarrassed by it'. Instead, they wanted to show that they are a part of it, and they are proud to be participating in this initiative."

Asked why Advocare made Twibbon Frames, she described what is essentially the flywheel, the loop in which one person's frame pulls in the next. "By seeing this Twibbon, their friends may be persuaded, 'oh, I want to be a part of that, too.'"

We have seen that loop carry a Frame further to a wider audience, and it works similarly for Advocare.

The focus of Advocare has always been how to help a young person take part in something they care about. Advocare organized Dear Future Me for fellow young people, and the Twibbon served as a visual medium, a reminder that their younger self took action in shaping their future self.

The part where she leaves

What happens to Advocare once Adelaine and her team grow out of their youth?

"I see a lot of people who create initiatives like me. Young people. But when they grow up, they leave [the initiative behind]." What bothers her is this: "what started as an idea that's amazing and an initiative that's impactful will soon die. And I don't want that to happen to Advocare."

The handover is already on her mind. "I realized that when I was [starting the] 12th grade, I started to focus on college. And that's why I also have someone to continue my programs."

She then spoke of the importance of successors who will carry on the principles. "There will be a replacement for the president. And then after [that] president grows up, then there's another president. So, it will be like a change of roles."

She keeps one thing. "Since I'm the founder, I feel like I'm still quite responsible in overseeing [the organization]." Asked whether Advocare is still hers, she does not hedge: "Yeah, it is still my baby."

What does not change is what the organization is: "Advocare is, will remain a non-profit that is led by the youth."

A whole life ahead

In the near term, Advocare has launched its own Model United Nations which will be held next October. 

In the long run, Adelaine has a bigger thing in mind, that is, the Indonesia We Care campaign. 

"For Indonesia We Care, the idea is to build an awareness program, let's say, through social media, to inform people such as what is happening in Kalimantan, and this will be led by the youth in Kalimantan themselves."

Adelaine thought of this as news of climate disasters keep coming from all over Indonesia. Kalimantan's forest fires being the most recent, the unresolved floods in Sumatra, earthquakes in East Nusa Tenggara, and drought in parts of Java. It is a tough outlook, and she confessed that she is still figuring out what the program will look like. One thing she is sure of: the people closest to the issue should be leading the movement.

The future has its own surprises, though we can see that Adelaine treats it with hope. She chose not to dwell on what she couldn't have done. Look at what she has done instead. Creating a space for advocacy and caring which was welcomed by so many. In the midst of it all, the team and her successfully created online campaigns that furthered the organization. 

The goal she set out for herself was not easy, challenging a perception that young people cannot do anything. Yet she has proven it is not impossible. 

Now, Advocare is here, and it is growing. In the process, Adelaine has invited thousands of young people to find out what they can do. And they still have their whole lives ahead of them.