Boxing used to be Dewi Budiati TJ Said's world. But now this former successful international boxing promoter has thrown her boundless energy into helping others help themselves and the environment.

During her three-year career in the boxing world, Dewi held four international events - two for the World Boxing Foundation championships and one each for the Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation and the International Boxing Federation - as well as organizing about 20 events at the national and regional levels.

These days, however, Dewi is better known as a social activist and environmentalist. She recently received the Hayati environmental award and was named by a local women's magazine as one of Indonesia's most notable 100 women of 2009.

Dewi, who was born in Medan, North Sumatra, on May 24, 1964, has a long history of helping others: She has been working closely with street children for 30 years, giving them shelter in her house and teaching them to be independent.

But her work helping street children and other marginalized people - former convicts, sex workers and the unemployed - has expanded to the larger field of helping the environment too.

"All of this happened by accident," she says, sitting in her workshop on the second floor of her home.

"Maybe God decided the role I should play in my life - to care about anything and anyone. I do it with all of my heart which brings me priceless spiritual bliss."

Dewi, whose husband is an executive at the Medan-based daily Waspada, might be well-off now, but she says her life was not always like that.

"When I was a kid, things were difficult. So I do what I can for people who need help," she says.

"At home, I have 26 street children whom I treat like my own kids," she adds.

And for the past two years, Dewi and those kids have been making handicrafts from discarded items and turning household waste into compost.

She says her idea of recycling rubbish popped into her mind when she was expecting her fifth child. Worn out by her pregnancy, she was lazing around her house, doing nothing much. Thus occupied, she found herself staring at the pieces of plastic and the water bottles strewn around her yard.

And then it hit her: She could transform these bits of rubbish into useful things that could be sold.

Easier said than done. She set about making handicrafts but found them expensive to make, mainly because she used expensive spray paint: "A can of pylox paint costs tens of thousands of rupiah," she says.

An accident led her to the answer of how to cut costs.

One day, she spilled some ink. She tried to cover the spill with sand and was amazed to watch the sand turn blue. This gave her the idea of how she could turn water bottles, cans, boxes and other rubbish into vases, photo frames, dustbins and ashtrays, for not much money.

"Just with Rp 5,000, we can turn rubbish into useful items. Just imagine, with that amount, we can make 40 vases or other items that can be sold for Rp 500 each," Dewi says.

"In this simple way, even an unemployed person with little capital can do something and make money."

Dewi also encourages people in her neighborhood to recycle organic waste by turning it into fertilizer.

She established a small group called Pita - a combination of pilih (sorting) and tanam (planting) - to educate each household on how to separate their waste and to plant vegetables in their yards.

"If each household is aware about the need to separate waste, they will not only help scavengers, but also help protect the environment," she adds with characteristic energy.

Dewi, who writes for newspapers and magazines, is also active in many organizations, including Yayasan Waspada Peduli, which focuses on poverty alleviation, Yayasan Bumi Hijau Lestari, an environmental foundation, and Koppling (Community of Youths who Care About the Environment).

"I asked youths who had dropped out and college students to form an organization that cares about the environment," she says.

"They shouldn't just know about politics but also the environment. At the very least, they should be able to empower the youths in their neighborhood who have dropped out how to be creative and make money *from recycling* with little capital."

Dewi's environmental campaigns were not immediately embraced by everyone, and she had to deal with a lot of disapproval, but she forged ahead with her ideas and idealism.

"At first, many people were skeptical and underestimated my activities," she says. "But I went out into the field and did it directly, so people came to trust me."

Today she works hand-in-hand with the Medan administration, Waspada newspaper, Unilever and Yayasan Bumi Hijau, playing the role of motivator to improve people's awareness about waste management and the environment.

Dewi, whose workshop recycles various kinds of trash, travels a lot to share her skills with members of the Family Welfare Movement (PKK) in 63 subdistricts in the city and marginalized people such as children in orphanages, children and women in Tanjung Gusta penitentiary in Medan, and sex workers arrested in public order raids and sent to social rehabilitation centers.

"I want to give the convicts life skills so that they can be independent when they are released, and train the sex workers so that they can express their creativity and make money," she says.

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