About me

Updated, 20 March 2009

Thank you for taking the time to visit this website. In the past few years, I have been devoting a lot of my spare time raising money for charity, and I would like to continue this passion for many more years to come. I have done a fair amount of fundraising for several charities both in the UK and abroad. Perhaps my contribution to date is not very much compared to what other fundraisers have done, but I have tried and I am still trying to do what I could to share and understand the world around me.

I was born in North Sumatra, Indonesia, in a small town in the Dairi region. I spent my childhood years there, and I have great memories of that time.  I was born to a very large family (9 brothers and sisters, and I am number 10 in the family).  I lost my father when I was only 9 years old and so I learnt how to face the world from my mum, an amazing single mother who died in 2002.  My mother and my family migrated to the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta so that we could continue our high-school and university education there. I attended a degree course in Banking and Economics and graduated from Akademi Bank Indonesia in 1984. Then I later met an English gentleman, who is kind, gentle and very loving, and is now my husband of 21 years.  I followed him to England in 1988 and got married here in London.  After we got married, my husband and I travelled around Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Burma and India), from February to September 1988, a journey that we will never forget.  Once we landed back in the UK in September 1988, both of us went straight back to being students again.  My husband attended an MA course at University of London, and I attended IT & language courses at Hammersmith and West London College.  In December 1989, my husband got a job to work in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, where we resided for nearly 3 ½ years.  My son (who is now 18) was born there. It was a great experience living there, and I hope to visit the country again one day soon. We returned to the UK in July 1993 and have lived here ever since. 

I am fully aware that I am just an ordinary human being, but I am a very hyper-active individual. I love doing things, particularly helping people. I always feel very special when I manage to make someone smiles or happy, it is a great and often indescribable feeling.  I love studying and I am proud to have achieved an MSc in IT Multimedia from London South Bank University, in 2002. I am currently studying for a management qualification at University of London, Birkbeck College and hope to apply this qualification to manage my very own charity, Connect Indonesia - Project Tapanuli. 

I am grateful to God, that he has created me as a very hyper-active and multi-skilled individual. I don’t have a great career history, as I always believe that I wasn’t born to be a career minded person.  I am a very hard working woman but I strongly believe that my life wasn’t destined for one mission and one mission only “sitting in an office for years of my life”. My husband often jokingly calls me “A Jack of all trades, a master of none” but I happily rephrase this nick-name to “A Jack of all trades, the master of everything”. I can work in an office, I can manage people, I can manage projects, I can manage complicated IT work, I am an excellent communicator, I am a successful fundraiser, I am a cook, I am a baker, I am gardener, I am a builder, I am a home maker, I am handy woman, I am good housewife and a mother, I am a jewellery maker, I am a photographer, I am singer and a song writer.

The world is full of amazing things to do and if you can do so many, why limit yourself to do just one thing? Go and have a great life. Don’t let capitalism control your world. It is good to work hard to make money, but don’t forget to spend some to make others and yourself happy......... and remember, you won’t be able to take your wealth to the grave when the time comes!!!

Thank you for taking the time to read this note and I hope you can join me to become a “Jack of all trades, the master of everything”, because there are many people out there who aren’t given these skills and talents, so if you have them, share them for good causes. (Back to Top)

All the very best,

Nelly Andon (Br-Torus).