Staff Profile – Dominicus Yabarmase (Domi)

Dominicus Yabarmase (Domi) grew up in a small village on the island of Tanimbar, Maluku. Due to the remote location, at the age of 10 Domi moved to a Catholic boarding school away from his home village and family to pursue his education. From there he moved to Kai island to finish high school and continued his university studies at Pattimura University in Ambon, where he earned a Bachelor of Education in English.

At university, Domi was an active member of several local and international communities. In 2012, he was selected by the US Embassy along with 19 other participants from Indonesia to study culture, diversity, and tolerance in the US.   For several years following his return from the USA, Domi pursued his love of travelling as a volunteer, managing and participating in programs across the archipelago sponsored by the US State Department in Ambon. His second opportunity to go to the US came when he was appointed as a Foreign Language Teaching Assistant under the Fulbright program for one year at the University of Michigan. While he was there had the opportunity to showcase Indonesian culture at various multicultural festivals together with fellow Indonesians studying or living in the US.

Domi has been teaching both Indonesian and English at IALF Bali since August 2017. In his time at the IALF Domi has taught Bahasa Indonesia to a group of young American students as part of the NSLI-Y (National Security Language Initiative for Youth) program at IALF Jakarta, and in 2019 he was appointed to be a language assistant in several primary and high schools in New South Wales, Australia.