Billy Mambrasar, the First Person of Papua Ever Admitted as Harvard University Student

TIMESINDONESIA, JAKARTA – Papua could once more lift their chin up for one of their descendants, Billy Mambrasar now has joined Harvard University after the university granted his request to enrol his study at the university on graduate school program.   

This is such good news either for Indonesia or to the local community of Papua. Billy shared this good news on his YouTube account through a 6 minutes video footage.

On his video, he was nervously waiting for Harvard to send him an acknowledgement email whether will he be admitted or rejected by the best university in the world. He was sitting in Oxford university cafeteria while accompanied by his dearest friend.

On his video, he even gets more nervous when he gets some trouble opening the email for the slow connection at the café. At the second trial, he even run out of battery for his computer. His friend even teased him that it’s a sign and he must lower his expectation, which make him even more nervous.

At the same time, his family in Papua, his parents and two of his sisters are also waiting for the announcement. Together, they read the admission email out loud. They all are very surprised and happy to see one of their members of family joining Harvard.  

“I hope she could inspire another people especially Papuan to be able to go further and bring back something for the good sake of Papua,” Mr. Mambrasar said giving some support to his son on the video.

Billy was working as presidential special advisory committee. Before joining Harvard, he has also been granted with scholarship at two prestigious world’s universities, Oxford and Australian National University (ANU). She also created Kitong Bisa Foundation to help those poor children to finish their school.

“I’m so grateful to be the first person in Papua admitted as Harvard University student. I hope it could motivate and inspire everyone else to do the same or more than what I have right now,” Billy Mambrasar said.

Papua and Papua Barat, the two most eastern provinces of Indonesia, have been two of the least developed regions of Indonesia. Most of the Indigenous Papuan like Billy, lives below poverty line. Billy himself, had to sell food on the street since he was 9 years old to make living for him and his family. However, he as a strong determination, studied hard, with a dream to lift his family out of Poverty. As a result, Billy has now made his family happy. Most of the Papuan kids now, are able to go to school with Scholarship. Most of them, like Billy, have been making significant achievements, and contributions for the Indonesia’s national development. (*)

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