Today we’d like to introduce you to Cahya Yunizar.
Hi Cahya, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Vinka is a mom of 5 yo daughter, working as a Resident Assistant at Unipol, a student housing based in Leeds. Vinka is always interested in human interactions, women, and kindness. Vinka has been married for 9 years now and been asked for practical tips on marriage a bunch of times. VIP Talks is one of her ways to share my experience & perspective with more people. Iphip (Cahya) is a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, majoring in Family Social Science. During her studies, Cahya works a lot with families from diverse circumstances. She has a huge concern for women’s issues, that reflected in most of her personal projects, including VIP-Talks. She has been married for 3 years now.
We have known each other for 10 years, although rarely meet in person. We both went to the same major and joined the same film club back in college. Our passions brought us together to initiate this project.
We started our podcast project journey with this statement:
“My heart broke when I heard the reason my friend got divorced was “it’s taboo to talk about ‘it’ in public”. Well, let’s just talk about it more and publicly then.” – Vinka
“I think this world needs more women talking about their own experiences, from their own perspectives.” – Cahya
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We face a huge challenge in the production process, due to limited production tools and geographic location. We did some of the recordings all the way from 3 continents. We have less experience in the broadcasting and the podcast world.
We have many other commitments in other places. This limited time and capacity often constrain us to postpone the project output (recording new content, uploading our projects to social media, or promoting new episodes).
Since we are talking about very personal topic areas such as relationships failures and past trauma, we encourage ourselves to maintain an appropriate distance in our boundaries and vulnerability.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
The basic idea of VIP-Talks podcast is two women pillow-talking about little things around them and beyond, relying on both science and real-world scenarios. Sometimes another woman is invited to add nuances and perspectives. We aim to provide a safe place and credible resources, especially for women, to discuss and learn anything, even something intimate, taboo, and restricted to talk about in everyday conversations.
We want to amplify some unheard voices in these areas:
Dating and intimate relationships
Marriage and couple
Parenting
Women’s issues (equality, empowerment, sexuality, etc.)
Legal
What’s happening
Additional recipe to make those topics different and rich:
Combining scientific findings with personal experiences
Integrating our perspectives as people living abroad (in other multicultural countries) with the existing values as Indonesians.
Acknowledging and utilizing our privileges
Statistics of our podcast:
Duration: 23-79 minutes
Episodes: 34
Total play: 2.5k
Existing Audience:
17-35 years old
75% Female
42% live abroad (USA, UK, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.)
Platforms: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Anchor, Google Podcast, etc.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love Twin-Cities areas for their diversity and inclusiveness. I’ve met so many people and learned so much from them. They gave me many insights, especially into different perspectives on relationships, family, and cultural beliefs.
It’s too cold sometimes! 🙂 That’s why we need warm hugs from our loved ones.
Contact Info:
- Email: cahyahaniva@gmail.com or vinkamaharani@gmail.com
- Website: anchor.fm/viptalks
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/viptalks/
