“It was early 2011. Something strange started happening to our neighbours—they said they were ill and wounds started appearing on their skin.”
A nurse from Karangmojo village in Boyolali, Indonesia, Siti Imroatus begins the story that would change her life, and the lives of many in her community. It happened nearly 15 years ago, when a mysterious series of events began to befall her small community rural community.
“We knew it was something to do with their cows, which they’d recently slaughtered to eat and sell”.
It was this experience, the effect it had on her own family, and the process of solving this mystery that Siti (known to friends and family as “Bu Im”) to join the Indonesian Red Cross (Palang Merah Indonesia). It was also the beginning of a determined, long-time commitment from Bu Im to keep working to ensure this kind of outbreak wouldn’t happen again.