Tya is the leader of API Institute (Aptaguna Padu Indonesia), a Bali based NGO, focusing on cacao farmers and empowerment that enables women-led social enterprises to grow into businesses. This initiative specifically focuses on women and young farmers in its supply chain to create products and services that benefit their lives in more sustainable ways.

Women farmers and young people are two vital actors in a sustainable cocoa business. Women are vulnerable to work without recognition and young farmers often leave the agricultural business because they see it as lacking economic value. By empowering the women and young cacao farmers in their community, Tya and her team are helping to pave the way for true sustainable development by addressing societal needs and challenges through the business itself. Their goal is that once this program is developed, these communities will be able to thrive independently.

Tya is active in non-profit leadership programs, and is responsible for the ‘Sustainable Action and Advocacy in Kakao Project’ with Kalimajari Foundation, supported by the Rainforest Alliance. This project aims to increase the quality of cacao beans produced by local farmers, while enhancing the related policy through lobbying and advocacy strategies directed at the government. Recently, Tya and her team constructed PERDA (regional regulations), as regulations to legally protect the Kakao Lestari empowerment program and improve cacao quality, specifically through fermentation. This maintains the legal basis for the government to continue prioritizing the cacao sector in the long run through their working agendas, and most importantly through gender budgeting allocation.

Motivated by her passion for sustainability, Tya saw a necessity for green business strategies including organic farming, certifications, and climate smart agriculture. In response, Tya and two of her women friends launched BALINI, a social enterprise brand that focuses on providing direct market access for derivative products made organically by women farmers such as cocoa lip balm, cocoa masks, and cocoa soap. The target market for these products are organic stores partners in Indonesia, Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium.