12
Weaving the Livelihoods:
INDONESIA
The Economic Empowerment of the Yogyakarta
Village Women through the Revitalization of
Traditional Handicrafts
GENERAL INFORMATION
◆
Country: Indonesia
◆
Location: Yogyakarta/Mantrijeron/Krapyak Wetan
◆
Community: Krapyak Wetan
◆
Number of Beneficiaries:
24 members of a handicraft collective and 44 factory workers
(direct); approximately 270 people who are members of families
of collective members (indirect)
◆
Workshop Section: Market and Finance
Capacity-building
◆
Implementing Institution: Rifka Annisa
◆
Head: Dra. Eli Nur Hayati, MPH
◆
Details of Institution:
Address: Jl. Jambon IV, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Tel.: (+ 62) 812 295 3140
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.rifka-annisa.or.id
◆
Implementation Period:
20 September 2006-19 September 2007
◆
Budget: $27,000
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VOLUME 14: EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITY-BASED APPROACHES TO RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS: POST-TSUNAMI EXPERIENCES
SUMMARY
This project, implemented by Rifka
Annisa, addressed the urgent economic
and social needs of the earthquake-affected community of Krapyak Wetan by
renovating the local tenun (traditional
hand-woven cloth) factory and creating,
training and marketing a village-based
women’s handicraft collective (fig. 1).
The project is of significant cultural
and social importance as it offers an
effective model for empowering village
women while assisting in the rejuvenation of an important traditional handicraft on the brink of its demise.
collapsing roofs destroying the fragile
looms beneath them (fig. 2). Within the
short space of a minute, Lestari Kurnia
went from being an aging but wellrespected traditional handicrafts business, teetering on the brink of viability
owing to diminishing markets, to a ruined
enterprise without access to the capital
required. Without intervention, Lestari
Kurnia’s mostly elderly employees had
little or no chance of finding alternative
employment.
Figure 2 Rescued tenun loom components
stacked against old factory walls.
Figure 1 Traditional school uniform lurik
and tenun shuttle.
BAC KG RO U N D
A N D J U S T I F I C AT I O N
The earthquake that measured 6.5 on
the Richter scale brought down large
sections of the Lestari Kurnia factory, the
The post-earthquake loss of both
livelihoods and houses left many poorer
families both psychologically traumatized and financially shattered. This had
a particularly harsh impact on village
women, facing increased levels of depression and domestic violence, with no clear
path forward.
With very few members of the
younger generation expressing interest in
the traditional handicrafts, the tenun lurik
industry faced a grim future prior to the
earthquake, which was subsequently
made much grimmer (fig. 3).
Weaving the Livelihoods: Indonesia
We tried so hard to make women
around Krapyak Wetan identify their
own potential”, said Nindyah, House
of Lawe.
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ACTIVITIES, ACHIEVEMENTS
A N D I M PA C T
ACTIVITIES
Workshop and Equipment
Reparations
Figure 3 Sixty-two-year-old tenun operator.
Although not yet completely reconstructed at the time of writing of the case
study report, the Lestari Kurnia factory
was fully operational, with looms repaired
and all staff re-engaged in their original
employment. Members of the handcraft
collective had taken initial training in the
process of manufacturing lurik cloth.
Production and sales had returned to close
to their pre-earthquake levels.
OBJECTIVES
The project aimed to:
• restore the damaged tenun factory
to an operational state;
• set up a village-based women’s
handcraft collective;
• train the collective in a range
of skills, including design,
manufacture and marketing as well
as entrepreneurial and business
skills, and provide women’s
empowerment training; and
Formation of Lestari Kurnia
Women’s Handicraft Collective
The Lestari Kurnia Women’s Handicraft
Collective has proved extremely popular
within the Krapyak Wetan community,
expanding from the planned 24 families
to over 45 (fig. 4). It now meets weekly,
discussing and dealing with new issues as
they arise. These meetings also act as
evaluations for achievements to date.
• document the process.
Figure 4 Members of the Lestari Kurnia
handicraft collective.
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VOLUME 14: EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITY-BASED APPROACHES TO RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS: POST-TSUNAMI EXPERIENCES
As planned, initial manufacturing
stock and materials have been purchased
and a range of products has been
designed and manufactured. At the time
of writing, Collective members were continuing to work for free, reinvesting time
and money to ensure the longer-term
survival of the business.
Training
The response to initial training was
extremely positive, with high attendance
and a sense of real achievement by the
participants. In response to the clear
desire for more extensive training, the
initial seven basic training sessions were
expanded, with over 24 two-hour training sessions now complete. Original
training included:
• primary product awareness
(Lurik Kurnia)
• sewing (House of Lawe);
• handicrafts (House of Lawe);
• entrepreneurial training
(Rifka Annisa);
• business management (successful
local businesses);
• gender-based training, antiviolence (Rifka Annisa); and
• marketing (successful local
businesses).
Marketing and Sales
Integration into the House of Lawe’s
existing marketing network was
achieved; Lestari Kurnia products are on
display at Gallery Amri (fig. 5) and on the
House of Lawe website. Five hundred
Figure 5 Lestari Kurnia products for sale at
Gallery Amri.
The best experience was participating
in the TexCraft exhibition in Jogja.
It really opened our eyes and minds.”
– Ms. Naina
leaflets were produced explaining the
products and the group’s capacity. The
group participated in two major handicraft
exhibitions in Jakarta: Inna Craft (17-23
April 2007) and the INKOWAPI
Exhibition (24-26 April 2007), along with
exhibitions in Bali and two exhibitions in
Yogyakarta. Sales leads from the last
Yogyakarta handicraft expo were in negotiation, with a number of contracts on the
verge of being signed as the present case
study report was being produced.
Full documentation of the tenun lurik
industry was undertaken in the form of a
short film recording manufacturing techniques and methods for future generations as well as assisting as a marketing
tool. On the day of a recent monitoring
and evaluation visit, workshop members
were going to Yogyakarta Women’s Radio
to be interviewed on this successful alternative model for women’s involvement in
village-based economic recovery.
Weaving the Livelihoods: Indonesia
THE PROCESS
Rifka Annisa assisted in factory repairs
and in the formation and training of the
Lestari Kurnia Women’s Handicraft
Collective. In conjunction with Lurik
Kurnia and the House of Lawe’s marketing scheme and showroom, the
Collective offers an opportunity to create
new markets for this traditional cloth
while engaging the younger generation
in traditional handicrafts and empowering the women of the earthquake-affected community.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Although hampered by delays in funding
dispersals, the project had more than
exceeded expectations at the time of
writing. The Lestari Kurnia factory was
up and running at pre-earthquake capacity while the women’s handicraft collective had successfully completed a range
of training sessions and was in negotiations for its first major sales contracts.
The project played a valuable role in
helping to preserve one of Indonesia’s
unique traditional handicrafts, ensuring
that the knowledge and significance of
hundreds of years of craftsmanship are
not lost but rather passed down to
younger generations.
Lestari Kurnia provides a model for
the reinvigoration of the flailing traditional handicraft industries of Indonesia
as well as an important example of the
empowerment and capacity-building of
local village women in a post-disaster
environment.
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In a largely male-dominated Javanese
society, women often have little control
over aid dollars. The project not only
financially empowered women through a
self-managed financial enterprise but also
provided training on gender-related issues,
enabling the Collective to support members suffering from domestic violence.
The project used a self-help recovery
model, with both the Collective and the
factory owned and managed by families
directly affected.
The targeting of the project towards
village women and the elderly ensured
that funds directly addressed the needs of
the poorest of the poor.
STRENGTHS
AND
WEAKNESSES
The project built on an underlying,
growing commitment from local community, government, and other concerned
institutions beginning to focus on the
conservation of tenun lurik and other traditions. Lurik itself was recently heavily
promoted by the Indonesian Soldiers
Wives Association.
The Lestari Kurnia brand name offers
a firm foundation for the project, with
over 40 years of continuous operation;
Lestari Kurnia is the chosen provider for
the lurik uniforms worn by the Sultan’s
guards. Lestari Kurnia lurik is the highestquality lurik from the Yogyakarta region.
This hand manufacturer provides a
foundation of quality and respect from
which to market the products of the
Lestari Kurnia collective.
The almost palpable desire of the
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women of Krapyak Wetan to learn,
engage and succeed created a solid foundation for the project. It stemmed from
the real need for income and a desire for
new opportunities along with a respect
and love of local traditions.
The greatest strength of the project
comes from the union between a
wholesale supplier, a retail and marketing
outlet, and the empowerment skills
developed through the assistance of Rifka
Annisa to create the manufacturing
collective that now exists between them.
PROJECT PLANNING
AND DESIGN
THE PROCESS
This project was initiated by Rifka Annisa
staff in response to concerns about
escalating domestic violence in the
earthquake-affected communities of
Yogyakarta. Rifka Annisa’s existing networks with the House of Lawe and awareness of the issues facing the Krapyak
Wetan village and its lurik factory led
Rifka Annisa to work with the community’s women to develop the South-South
Grants Facility (SSGF) proposal.
R E P R E S E N TAT I V E N E S S
The Lestari Kurnia Women’s Handicraft
Collective is fully owned and run by the
women of the village of Krapyak Wetan,
providing a model for community
participation, engagement and representation. It builds on the village-level
women’s organizations that exist in
traditional Javanese society, creating an
inclusive model that has comfortably
expanded.
Handicrafts started at the collective
workshop are often taken home and
completed by the husband and other
family members, embracing all members
of the community with spare labour
capacity and a desire to participate.
PLANS
FOR
S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y
As a business-centred programme, the
lurik collective predicted, at the time of
writing, that it would be fully self-sustaining within the year. Current contract
negotiations appear extremely promising.
The direct involvement of the collective
with the manufacturer of its primary raw
product helps to ensure the viability of
both entities. Continued support in
design and awareness of changing markets is ensured by the continuing relationship with the House of Lawe and
Gallery Amri while support in the business and social aspects of the business
will be ongoing through the Rifka Annisa
support networks.
E VA L U AT I O N
In the case of Rifka Annisa, monitoring
and evaluation activities were greatly
assisted by the work of two organizations: Rifka Annisa and the House of
Lawe. The project management cycle
implemented by the SSGF team also
included regular site visits, semi-structured questionnaires, informal discussions
and a biannual formal reporting process.
Weaving the Livelihoods: Indonesia
PA R T N E R S H I P S
IMPLEMENTING INSTITUTION
Rifka Annisa
Rifka Annisa, which means “women’s
friend”, is the first and foremost women’s
crisis centre in Indonesia. It was established in 1993 by a group of women
activists to focus on providing support for
women survivors of violence.
As part of its programme to prevent
domestic violence, Rifka Annisa runs a
business training, development and networking programme aimed at empowering and informing women about how to
deal with domestic violence. Levels of
domestic violence commonly rise dramatically in post-humanitarian disaster
situations; hence Rifka Annisa is implementing several prevention-based programmes such as the Lestari Kurnia
Women’s Handicraft Collective.
Rifka Annisa also runs a network for
Yogyakarta and the region’s women’s collectives and small businesses, providing
ongoing support for projects such as the
Lestari Kurnia collective.
HOUSE
OF
L AW E
The House of Lawe was created three
years ago by five young women concerned about the erosion of their cultural
heritage, especially that of traditional
hand-woven textiles. With many handweaving traditions throughout the world
near the vanishing point, they decided
that transforming traditional cloth bear-
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ing symbolic meanings into functional
items for people to use in their everyday
lives would bring this tradition out of
obscurity and back into public view.
By encouraging producers, especially
women, to continue producing lurik and
by turning it into a profitable commodity, the House of Lawe aims to empower
women to improve their own livelihoods
and those of their children while reviving
threatened age-old handicrafts.
ROLE
OF
GOVERNMENT
Local village leaders have been involved
at all stages of the development and
implantation of the Lestari Kurnia collective and continue to support the project.
Strong concern has been expressed
by the Sultan and the provincial
government about the potential loss of
traditional handicrafts. Lestari Kurnia
provides a model for the village-based
recovery of these traditional industries.
Once it has achieved its initial goals of
financial success and stability, the
Collective hopes to work with the
provincial government to assist in the
replication of this recovery model. Initial
contact has been made with the government, which has expressed its clear
support for the project.
CHALLENGES
AND CONSTRAINTS
Structural damage from the earthquake to
the local factories, shops, houses and
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shared infrastructure (schools, clinics,
etc.) of the village constituted the biggest
single hurdle for economic recovery in
the area. The complexity of urban land
ownership and rental arrangements in
peri-urban areas in effect has meant less
assistance per affected person for villages
such as Krapyak Wetan, making recovery
comparatively that much harder in these
communities.
The necessary reliance on traditional
equipment is both an intrinsic aspect of
such handicrafts as well as a limiting
factor to the industry’s ability to recover
from damage. With only a limited number
of craftspeople with the knowledge and
ability to repair and build the looms,
reconstruction must progress slowly (fig. 6).
In addition to the difficulties of physical recovery, many traditional handicraft
and village-based businesses have limited
formal bookkeeping skills and therefore
lack the business records required by
modern lending institutions.
In view of workers whose average age
is more than 60 and little interest being
Figure 6 The last remaining traditional
thread setter (84 years old) with apprentice.
Without increased market access and
improved market branding, the industry lacks
the capacity and resources to attract a new
generation of committed craftspeople.
expressed by younger generations, the
tenun lurik industry faces a critical skills
shortage. Traditional knowledge and
valuable information are in danger of
being lost as the current generation of
aging workers passes away. Without
increased market access and improved
market branding, the industry lacks the
capacity or resources to attract a new
generation of committed craftspeople.
Many of Indonesia’s ancient handicraft industries continue to function on
very traditional business management
models; with little formal business training and limited understanding of the
modern market, few have the capacity to
adapt to rapid change or severe circumstances such as those inflicted by the
earthquake. The difference in management styles between the very traditional
management of Lurik Kurnia and the
handicraft collective’s more participatory
model was initially quite challenging for
Rifka Annisa and the House of Lawe.
The women of the village of Krapyak
Wetan initially engaged in the project
with (in their own words) “quite limited
skills and knowledge” regarding both the
design and manufacture of the handicrafts themselves and the business expertise required to create a business around
them. Building these skills was a very real
challenge for the project.
Weaving the Livelihoods: Indonesia
Although relatively price-competitive, handcrafted tenun lurik (fig. 7)
remains a poorly marketed product.
Potential consumers are largely uninformed as to the value and meaning
attached to it. Younger or foreign buyers
are often unable to tell the difference
between machine-produced and handwoven products and are uninformed as
to the difference in quality. Lurik sold as
straight cloth is at the bottom of a long
profit chain in the export handicraft
industry.
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• When collective members were
questioned as to the most important thing that they had learned
from this process, they commented on the intense learning curve
resulting from both the formation
of a business and the learning of
new handicraft skills. Many stated
that even-higher levels of training
would have been useful. Support
agencies responded to this request
within the funding restrictions
outlined earlier. An increased
budget for training in future projects should be considered.
REPLICABILITY
Figure 7 Freshly dyed lurik fibres
drying in the sun.
LESSONS LEARNED
• The dispersal of funds more slowly
than contractually expected posed
challenges for Rifka Annisa and
the House of Lawe in maintaining
community enthusiasm for the
project. Fortunately, the extraordinary commitment of both supporting organizations ensured community support and success in the initial stages of the project, but the
stress that delayed funding places
on supporting organizations
should not be underestimated.
The project is an inspiring model for
the growth and empowerment of women
that can be achieved through community-led, village-based economic recovery
programmes. It also provides a model for
the reinvigoration of traditional handicraft industries.
The House of Lawe and Rifka Annisa
continue to be committed to the creation
and support of village-based enterprises,
replicating the Lestari Kurnia model with
respect to other handicrafts and villages
in the area.
The project has had access only to
first-phase funding, with the second phase
recently received at the time of writing.
Nevertheless, many of the objectives of
the project have already been achieved,
with the Collective now larger than initially anticipated, more training conducted
and sales contracts in negotiation.
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The project is part of a self-replicating process through the expanding
network of suppliers that the House of
Lawe is developing and through the
development of similar initiatives by the
expanding support network of Rifka
Annisa.
In saying this, however, it is important to recognize the “beyond the call of
duty” effort from both supporting organizations up to the time of writing and to
question how long this can continue.
Additionally, depending on the economics of any one project, input from donor
organizations in the form of seed funding
may be required to start similar handicraft rejuvenation projects.
FUTURE PLANS
With the next two rounds of funding, the
project plans to respond to the community’s enthusiasm for learning, with further
training to expand the current skills base.
Over the next period, the collective
hopes to finalize a book recording the
progress and success of the project. This
will not only assist in the replicability of
the project but also provide further marketing material.
The collective hopes to fully formalize its legal structure within the next year
to ensure full legal ownership by its
members. There is also a plan to begin
patenting a number of the designs that it
has produced.
P U B L I C AT I O N S
AND REFERENCES
Female Radio, 3 August 2007, about the
House of Lawe.
Kabare Magazine, 2006.
Contacts:
Case Study Documented by:
Dave Hodgkin
E-mail: [email protected]
Project Contact:
Rommy Haryanto