The Breadwinner from Sade Village

Inaq Janap , is the 50 years old woman from Sade Sasak Village Lombok who has been weaving most of  hand woven fabric at our store . All of the fabric has been woven on the front porch of her simple house in Sade.

We met her a year ago when the sewing program started. We wanted to use local fabrics and used the popular Ikat from Sade in another form and various colors. Obtaining accurate information from weavers has been a challenge for us. Most of weavers we met never gave accurate information about the length of weaving process, price of raw material and selling price. When we found Inak Janap she told us all the information needed, including her struggling to fulfill her family daily needs and school expenses of her two sons.

As a mother of 4 children Inaq Janap’s income less than Rp 10,000 (USD 1) per day. Her husband had lost his job as a night guard at a chicken farm since the farm hit by storm.  The field they have can only grow rice once a year because rice planting in Southern Lombok depends on rain fall. She doesn’t have any option to get more income except from weaving, the skill that she has been doing since she was teenager. Her family is living from hand to mouth

Every day, from morning till afternoon Inaq Janap works weaving a Sabuk Kedogan or Antang . She only stops for a couple minutes to pray. She even skips lunch so the Sabuk can be finished as soon as possible.  Her eye sight begun to blur because of cataracts and advice from family members to have surgery is ignored because she doesn’t want to stop weaving during healing process. 

Finishing one unit Ikat Antang or Kedogan with measurement 35 cm x 300 cm takes 3 to 4 days. Usually a merchant will come to Sade village to collect Ikat and other hand woven fabrics. Inak Janap only earns Rp 20,000 – Rp 30,000  ( USD 2- USD 3 ) as sales profit . Sometime she earns more if a tourist comes to her house and buys her ancient natural dyed ikat which she made and has kept since she was teenager. But this only happens once a while because Inak Janap can’t even speak Indonesian . When a tourist comes to her house her neighbors who can speak Bahasa and Basic English came to the house and bring all the hand woven pieces to be sold. She can’t do anything to attract attention of buyer than smiling to witness transactions between her neighbors and those tourists while hoping that someday her family live condition will change.

Our meeting with Inaq Janap is like an oasis for her. At that time she needed money to send her 3^rd  son to further his study at a college in Java and the youngest one at Junior High School in Sengkol. At the beginning she found difficulties in doing our first hand woven fabric. New color compositions, using meter for measurement, estimating number of yarns, duration of weaving process first time experiences for her. She just realized that profit she earned from sales of one Ikat only gave benefit to the merchant.

Our four first Ikats were finished within two weeks and she was so happy when she received her first wages from Bersahara. Since that time she has had many orders not only from us but also from foreigner tourists that order their own color. Slowly her life began to change. If she had many orders to be finished quickly then she shared them with her relative, helping to support her wider family.

One year passed and her third son just completed his studies and is back home. The burden Inak Janap used to carry for her family is lighter now. She is inspired to continue and she doesn’t want to stop weaving because she wants her youngest son get higher education in order to have better life.  

Inaq Janap was weaving our first Ikat at the front porch of her house. Photo by Fraser Smith

 Bersahara is proud to be working with such an amazing woman and is thankful for her skills and dedication!