Seven ladies, one coping strategy

Seven ladies were already gathering when I arrived at Cogreg village tucked away in the Bogor hills, West Java, Indonesia, that afternoon. The ladies were all 2007 Microaid Projects beneficiaries. They gained a lot of different family enterprise know-how through their Microaid Projects, funded by donors as far away as USA courtesy of the Internet. How to cook melinjo crisps, banana crisps, sewing simple children's clothes, using their home garden for decorative plants sales, making handicrafts for sale such as straw flowers, and beads accessories. These skills proved to be very useful until an economic whirlwind hit them.

Sri, one of the ladies, aged 38 with 3 children, used to get good profits from selling melinjo crisps with nice packaging while Herlina, a neighbor aged 54 with 5 children, was busy selling banana crisps. But that was a year ago when prices were still friendly. Early this year, they both had to close her business because skyrocketing food prices meant that the raw materials were too expensive and customers, now short on cash anyway, could not pay the increased price Sri and Herlina had to charge to make even a modest return on the crisps. Even small enterprise processing plants producing crisps at a much better economic scale had to dissolve. Small producers like Sri and Herlina are so vulnerable to external factors of inflation: the enemy of the poor. At this point, where their little money they had saved was of no value against soaring input prices, Sri and Herlina decided to quit the crisp business.

Not long after the MicroAid Projects course in handicrafts, Erlin (45 years, 3 children), Nomi (40 years, 3 children) and Ari (45 years, 3 children) had really become experts in producing various accessories. Erlin stitch embroidery, Nomi makes artificial flower from straw while Ari made various bangles, mats and wall hangings from beads. You cannot help but notice their goods are of the highest quality. The combination of colours is just perfect that no one would believe they came from the poor village of Cogreg. But what can Nomi and Ari do with their expertise now? Customers have abandoned them since food prices soared.

The same fate happens to Yayuk aged 30 with 2 children and Ngatimah aged 40 with a child who followed the course of for home plot nurseries. They had a feeling that something must have gone wrong with the economy when their plants have been laying idle for months, waiting for customers. After some time, the massive increase in food prices really came.

With the economy slowing down, how can the Cogreg ladies deal with both expensive food and dissolvence of their business? What should be their coping strategy? Well, they were lucky enough to have learnt the skills of sewing from Microaid Projects. They make embroidery (mostly) on a ready-made Muslim headscarves from a local clothing factory. This is how their cheap labour helps them cope with economic whirlwinds. The motif has been copied on the fabric which needs embroidering for each particular headscarf by the factory. The work orders come to them with the headscarf and all materials needed. The work remaining is embroidery the motifs which cannot be done by machine.

A paradox but here in Cogreg village human labour is valued much lower than a machine! People are paid Rp. 6,000 (30p) for one big headscarf with complicated embroidery. This is work for no less than 6 days and not less than 5 hours a day. In other words their labour is worth Rp. 200 (1p) per hour: almost zero compensation for eye weariness and backache. Yet, out of this frustration and hard graft, a little money still means a fortune for those who have nothing.

Seven ladies with one coping strategy are confirmed to be the winners, not the losers. They stand strong against lives that appear to be anything but easy. Through my visit, seven ladies of Cogreg take the opportunity to say thank you to Microaid projects, living proof that even a little help is better than nothing.

Posted:

http://www.microaidprojects.org.uk/page-sevenladies.htm