Background
Kerenina is of mixed descent, her mother is from Montana, United States and her father from Bandung, Indonesia.
Kerenina is of mixed descent, her mother is from Montana, United States and her father from Bandung, Indonesia.
In her last year of high school, Kerenina completed a performing arts course while she lived in Bali. In addition, she also took a music course learning drums, and attended vocals lessons.
She represented Indonesia at the Mission World 2009 in South Africa in November–December the same year. She has five siblings, one of whom is also a well-known celebrity in Indonesia, Steve Emmanuel, who had starred in several television soap operas (also known as "sinetron" in Indonesia). Kerenina was homeschooled in her early years until graduation, and in her teen years actively participated in several humanitarian projects throughout the Indonesian archipelago.
By the age of 22, Kerenina had received long-distance certificates in Marketing, Childhood Teaching, Home Economics, and Dancing. all of which were issued by Christian Vocational Academy, a long-distance learning institution.
During her first year of college, she spent a year in India, where she helped to set up a school for deaf children. She also played an active role in consolidating women"s rights in the women"s correctional institute in New Delhi.
In the aftermath of the catastrophic tsunami in Aceh in December 2004, Kerenina spent much of the following two years helping to rebuild Aceh. Being active in one of the first response disaster relief teams, she also, with the help of other organizations, founded projects such as, educational programs for the children in the displaced persons camps, organising the building and donating of over 100 fishing boats to the fishing villages within and surrounding Banda Aceh.
She was key in the development of a mobile clinic project which provided the first and only free mobile health service in the area at that time, bringing free medical care and medicine to 15 villages within the Aceh region.
Kerenina also spent her spare time doing various television commercials and modelling jobs, such as catwalks at fashion shows and photo spreads for fashion magazines. In April 2009, she auditioned for the Mission Indonesia 2009 competition and was selected as one of the 33 finalists to compete for the Mission Indonesia 2009 title. Kerenina was chosen to be the representative from DKI Jakarta and along with 32 other finalists began the two weeks quarantine preparation program leading up to the grand final event of the competition.