Gartini Isa Griffin

Gartini Isa Griffin, Raden Adjung (princess) Gartini Soeriadanoeningrat, passed away peacefully on Jan. 6, 2018, with her Indonesian and American families nearby.

She was born May 14, 1946, at Sumedang in West Java, Indonesia. “Tini” as she was affectionately known here, spent most of her childhood in Bandung, West Java, where her father was a government official.  She initially learned her English in Hong Kong, where her father Gandi had a diplomatic posting. Ultimately, she received her bachelor’s in English from Jakarta’s Universitat Christin Indonesia.

Tini devoted her professional life to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Jakarta, where she specialized in aiding those who suffered from political and/or religious persecution.  She was honored as one of the first two recipients of United States Agency for International Development’s prestigious John Withers Human Rights Award in 2009 awarded to an individual who promoted human rights, including the protection of minorities, and acted with courage and displayed exceptional integrity, intellectual, and moral courage and commitment.  After relocating to the United States in 2008, she assisted Amnesty International and other NGO organizations in the Washington, D.C. area in their support of human rights and civil society, as well as volunteering as an English-Indonesian translator.

She moved from Washington, DC to the Mount Washington Valley in New Hampshire where she continued her volunteer efforts on behalf of human rights, as well as volunteering at the Jackson Public Library and other community organizations.  ,She became a U.S. citizen in 2014.

Those she touched most closely include her husband Albert J. Griffin Jr. of Glen, N.H., and his sisters Mary, Kathleen, Helen and Julia as well as her Indonesian family, including daughter Saraswati Isa and her husband, Edward Aditya; her son Indra Asikin Isa and his wife, Maria Melissa Riyani Putri; and her grandchildren, Gabriel Sasha Mahoni Isa and Isabel Gwendolyn Aditya.

Tini’s greatest legacy is not only her lifelong contributions to human rights, but the many friendships she treasured, whether those of her childhood in Indonesia, her many years working for the USAID or the many residents of Mount Washington Valley she befriended.   A celebration of her life will be scheduled later in the spring. Messages of condolence may be left online at bryantfuneralhome.net.

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