O’ong Maryono Pencak Silat Award is a small grant program that provides opportunities to research, document, and publish information about pencak silat, a rich, but still relatively unknown, Malay martial art. It is hoped that supported studies will contribute to preserving and promoting pencak silat in all its aspects and diversity of styles and forms, and to introducing it to new and wider audiences.
The Award is dedicated to the late Indonesian pencak silat Master O’ong Maryono and was launched on March 20, 2014 to commemorate the first anniversary of his death. Master O’ong Maryono dedicated his entire life to pencak silat, first as an athlete and national and international champion, and later as a martial arts actor, international coach and official, and as a researcher and innovator. He is the author of the seminal book Pencak Silat in the Indonesian Archipelago and its Indonesian version Pencak Silat Merentang Waktu.
After his death, his wife Rosalia (Lia) Sciortino built on her professional experience in philanthropy and international development to create a small grant program that would uphold Master O’ong Maryono’s vision to promote pencak silat as a pluralist cultural heritage and keep his spirit and passion alive.
The program’s financial management has been entrusted to the Indonesian Association for Humanity (legally YSIK, but for branding purposes called IKA), a professional Indonesian resource granting organization that shares the Award’s same values of cultural diversity and social concern. Funds for the Award’s activities and grants are donated by the family with additional support from friends and concerned individuals and organizations.