Bersahara First Handicraft Market

Women from Ujung sewing group during the market

Last September 22nd and 23rd we held the first Handicraft Market with all the bags that the women have learnt to make with Babette. Market was held at Solah Beach and Bar restaurant in Kuta Lombok.

For two days the women had the opportunity to see for themselves the interest people showed, not only in the handicrafts but, also in themselves and their little sewing business. It was good for them to realize the effort it takes to sell and the importance of explaining the nature of the project, the nature of the fabrics and their handmade work.

All products are hand made using locally hand woven fabrics (like Ikats from Sumbawa and Java and Sabuk and Songket from Lombok), with inspiration from modern designs introduced by our volunteer and designer Babette. The women started their training the second week of July, some of them with a very basic knowledge of machine and hand sewing as well as embroidery. Babette has taught them about designing, work processes and organization, cleanliness, concentration and patience. See for yourself the results in only 2 months!

 

 

Although it was a bit intimidating for them at first, since they had never been exposed to so many foreigners who wanted to meet them and talk with them, they managed to use their very basic knowledge of english and their spontaneity to make a 3,500,000Rp sales (around 350US$). This is a great achievement for them and has encouraged them to continue with the learning and hard work and to believe in the little business they have started. We are very confident that this is only the beginning!

Congratulations to all the women and to their teacher, Babette, and their supporter, Ellen!

Group Number 8!

Banyu Urip Group is located in Dusun (hamlet) Lengak Mati, Banyu Urip Village, West Praya Sub District. It takes 1,5 hours by motorbike from Kuta through a very bumpy road. 

The group was started at the end of July 2012 by Aryan, one of the members of Bangkang Group, who is a teacher and very supportive of the methodology. She was so keen that we trained her to start this group on her own. The group has 14 members, all of them farmers with limited education and literacy level. Most of them only speak the local language (Sasak), making it really challenging for the team to work with this group.

During their first meeting after the training, they felt so insecure that they asked the cleric in town to help them with the financial records needed for the savings and loans group. However, thanks to a more thorough explanation they finally accepted to take full responsibility and now have chosen 5 women to take over the president, book-keeping, key and box responsibilities. Although it was challenging for them to do the book keeping, as things like using a calculator and writing numbers are not usual things for them, after almost an hour they managed to finish the task of recording the shares. 

We will continue to encourage them to continue the learning pace in order to progress in the route to empowerment of this group too!

Welcome to all the women in Banyu Urip

Thanks Arlene!

We met Arlene last February in one of her visits to Kuta Lombok. She loved Bersahara and committed to come back soon to help us out. 5 months later she landed here again, 2 camaras and a surf board as all gear.

She has spent 10 intense days following every step of the team and the women: markets, savings and loans groups, door to door selling, fish buying, business management trainings, sewing classes, even sasak women modelling. 

Arlene is a professional photographer from Australia (http://arlenebaxblog.com/) who travels the world during her free time volunteering with different organizations, supporting them with what she most loves, photographing people. With Bersahara not only has she done the same, but she has also helped us design our communication materials and even contributed economically to support us.

Arlene, we are very grateful to you, the whole team and the women have enjoyed having you with us! We wish you all the best and hope to see you again soon!

Here is a little taste of Arlene's work...

 

Bangkang Savings and Loans group

Yum managing the accounting for the group in Ujung

Ina Dani and Ina Lina waiting for customers...

Ina Genun happy after selling all her fish!

Ina Ogi and her family

Ina Lena making a bamboo mat



Ina Yuyun door to door sales woman



Business Managment training with Ayong

Buying vegetables in Sengkol market with Ina Nisa

Hajah Saibi preparing the linen for a bag

Sasak Modelling

Last Wednesday we went to Ujung village. We wanted to see the evolution of the design and sewing classes that our volunteer Babette has recently started with two groups of women.

Babette supervising Ayong's sewing

The final product, isn't it beautiful?

The Ujung group is made out of 6 women who have some previous basic experience with machine sewing and hand embroidery. Only 3 weeks after starting, the women have already finished their first pieces, a beautiful bag made out of traditional Ikat fabric (hand woven cotton thread), combined with modern trims and designs. We are really proud of them and very grateful to Babette who has managed to achieve this beautiful result in a record time!

To our surprise, the women had decided to dress up in traditional Sasak clothes and unexpectedly modelled for us! See for yourself….

Sasak Models

The women told us that they would have never imagined that they could possibly make a bag like this with their own hands and using their own imagination for embroidery designs. We had a great time!

On the way to empowerment!

Bersahara First Employee!

Ellen Pandia was born in Medan, Northern Sumatra. She studied Bachelor in Accounting and started her professional career as an accountant in a restaurant in Batam. After over a year she started looking for a job in the social sector and got an offer as an accountant for ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency), a development organization based in Medan. After 6 years she was transferred to Southern Lombok to take on grass root work leading a water sanitation project.

We met Ellen last year and mnmediately connected with her. After her job at ADRA finished last June we offered her to join Bersahara and we are very lucky that she accepted.

Ellen will be handling the Finance and Accounting for Bersahara, and will assume responsibilities to support and supervise volunteers and other employees. She will also supervie the savings and loans groups and initiate new ones. We also count on Ellen's previous experience in social matters to inspire and lead Bersahara to take on new projects. 

"Working with community at a social / humanitarian organization enriches me with many experiences and many lessons to be learned that I can’t have from a text book. It’s great happiness when I see beneficiary changes to be better in their life."

Welcome Ellen

The Biggest loan so far!

Ina Nisa selling her vegetables at Baturiti Kadus House

This month one of the members of the Baturiti Savings and Loans groups took a 2,500,000Rp loan to invest in her business. Ina Nisa travels to the Sangkol market, 20-30 minutes bus ride, to buy fresh vegetables and then sell them door to door in the Kuta area.

This loan was to be invested in her travel expenses so she could increase the number of times she goes to the market and therefore slowly expand her business. For perspective, the minimum wage per month in NTB province in 2011 was of 950,000Rp, while the average monthly salary was of 1,347,119Rp (Source: Indonesia BPS Statistics). This means that Ina Nisa has managed to obtain a loan that is almost 2 times the average monthly salary of an employee in the NTB province.

This has been possible thanks to the KAF commnunity savings and loans methodology that we started 10 months ago in the area, which enables women to help each other  with small loans, without the need to depend on external funds.

Group Event in Kuta Beach

Last Saturday July the 14^th we had the second Bersahara women gathering in Kuta Beach. As new groups join we wanted to make sure that they get to know other groups, exchange experiences and have fun together.

Again we had some time to reflect about the good things about being a woman and also about the most difficult things that women face. As we found out last time, women in the groups find child bearing and family caring as the best thing of being women. Generally, the biggest difficulties are related to the burden of having to do all the household work alone and having to deal with angry husbands. 

According to the National Population Census by BPS Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB) province has one of the lowest sex ratio in Indonesia, at 94% vs. 101 for total Indonesia, which means there are more women than men. With 1,252,000 Households, at an average size of 3.6members/household, the province has the lowest literacy rate of all Indonesia (after Papua) for both men and women, at 86% and 77% respectively (vs. 95% and 90% for national average). On average, men will attend school an average of 7 years, while for girls the average drops to 6 years. This, together with the low GDP/capita explains that the province holds the lowest Human Development Index (HDI) in the country, at 65,2% vs 72,7% national average.

Despite their difficult situation we find these women incredibly patient, hard working and willing to learn and improve every day.

We hope that our efforts to educate women and support them in generating an income will slowly contribute to the improvement of human development of the area, and particularly in the empowerment of these women so they are able to choose their own future.

One more group!

A few kilometres out of Kuta, up in the mountains and through a remote and dense bamboo and coconut forest is the small village of Bunlesung, home to the 11 women who have started the 6th savings and loans group in Kuta Lombok area.

Bunlesung is surrounded by thick wild vegetation mainly of coconut trees. There is no electricity supply or running water. The women in the villages have to walk to the only well in the village every day to fetch the water for cooking, cleaning and bathing. The luckiest families who have a little “pool” (as they call it) can buy the water from the nearest town with a natural spring water and have it delivered regularly by a truck. The road to this village is a dirt track full of stones and potholes, we can only imagine how this road will look like in the rainy season.

The road to Bunlesung

Families live of the land and farming cows. The women have learnt how to make Virgin coconut oil with rain water and are very creative with every day needs since the nearest shop is 20 min. away by motorbike.

We are received at Arian’s house (known as Ina Opa in the village, leader of the group), who offers us some home made snacks and young coconuts fresh from the trees and sipped through a natural papaya stem straw!

Arian's house in Bunlesung

Arianne and Arian

Arian has been trained by Arianne so that she can train the women in the nearby villages how to start their own savings and loans groups. 

We hope the group can start helping  each other through the savings and loans, and we are already thinking of ways we can help them sell their coconut oil or help them generate additional income!

Thanks to Babette and Kirsten who helped us with the new group

Welcome Bunlesung women!

Our first Volunteer!

Babette looking at ikats weaving

Babette, a half Spanish and half French woman, landed last week in the new international airport of Lombok. She has come to volunteer with Bersahara for 3 months. Babette is an experienced business woman who has travelled the world supporting women in different countries (like India, Iran, Myanmar and Mali), teaching them how to design fashion items using local fabrics and techniques.

Babette shopping in Mataram

Shopping for Ikats in Sukarara traditional village

Babette will be working with some of the groups teaching them how to make bags, sarongs and other items out of the beautiful and traditional Ikats and Songkets fabrics.

She has only been with us for a little more than a week and she can already speak a little Bahasa Indonesia! We are very happy to have her with us and believe that her contribution will be of great help for the women in Kuta Lombok.

Facing Life

Ina Yuyun is 25 years old, she has a seven year old daughter and has been married since she was 17. She is from Sade, a traditional Sasak village in Southern Lombok known for their weaving. As many other young teenagers from Sade, Ina Yuyun started coming to Kuta very young to sell the sarongs that her family would weave. This is how she learnt her English and developed her skills as a seller, which you would never imagine as she is a quite and apparently shy person. Here in Kuta she met her husband and got married.

8  months ago she started a new business: door to door clothes selling. She enjoys selling but was tired of working for tourists so she decided to target the local people. She now buys clothes in the wholesaler shops in Mataram city and sells them in the different villages around Kuta. She asked us for advice on how to improve her business. We started supervising her income and expenses figures, to help her understand it better, and realised that she was making more income than her husband, who worked for a Hotel.

Women from Sade selling sarongs in Kuta Beach

3 months ago the police came to her house and registered every corner, finding what they were looking for. Apparently her husband had got involved in some kind of drug dealing and is now awaiting sentencing for the time in prison.  So Ina Yuyun has been left alone to take care of the house and their girl. One week ago she took a 1.450.000Rp loan from the group. She said it was for her business. Today we found out that she has bought some bamboo and wood to build a little stall in the local market. She has decided to start selling in the market, as well as door to door, and is busy getting all ready before Ramadan starts: the perfect timing when every Muslim spends more money in presents for others.

Ina Yuyun as "accountant responsible" for the Savings and loans group

Again, we are proud of Ina Yuyun’s  strength and courage and wish her all the best with her new extended business.