After Isabelle van Empel and Casper Goldman, at the time both high school students in the Netherlands, shared their views on children’s rights in the summer of 2016 they decided they wanted to take concrete action to help disadvantaged children. In the following 9 months they investigated their options and eventually drafted a proposal for the establishment of a charity organization aimed at promoting education for underprivileged children in Indonesia.
Indonesia was a natural choice when deciding where to launch our organisation. The Goldman family has had a three-generations long family friendship with the Indonesian Suyoto family. When sharing our ideas with the family Suyoto, a charitable partnership was quickly agreed upon. The family Suyoto would be in charge of all operational aspects of the organization through our local organization: Yayasan Trisula.
In April 2017, the Van Empel Goldman Foundation was established, free of charge, due to the kind support of Jager Bokdam de Visser Netwerk Notarissen. Not long after, the Dutch team traveled to Indonesia to visit potential projects and meet with like-minded local organizations and individuals. During this visit, the charity had a donor commitment of €2.000, which we used to launch our first project at Sekolah Master Indonesia, a school for disadvantaged children in Depok, where we renovated several classrooms.
Many more travels and projects later, today, we have impacted the lives of thousands of students through investing over €71.000 in educational projects that span Indonesia, and are located in Jakarta, Central Java, and Lombok. Our donations have covered a range of educational themes such as English language development, awareness around sustainability, developing skills for the job market, renovating facilities, and building community centres.
Isabelle studied Business Administration at the Erasmus School of Management and works as a Digital Strategy Consultant at Business Transformation company Valtech, and Casper studied International Relations at King’s College London and works as a Research Associate at risk management consultancy The Risk Advisory Group. Both Isabelle and Casper continue to passionately advocate for children's rights in Indonesia through our initiatives and are jointly in charge of the daily management of the foundation.
