KDKMP Kober: An Endeavour to Empower Cooperatives from the Ground Up
In a modest room within the Kober Village Office complex in Banyumas Regency, Central Java, stacks of rice sacks, LPG cylinders, and eggs are ready for distribution. Behind this simplicity lies an endeavour far greater than merely selling basic necessities. The room serves as the starting point for the Koperasi Desa/Kelurahan Merah Putih (KDKMP) of Kober Village, West Purwokerto District, Banyumas.
It is here that the management is trying to prove that a cooperative does not need to wait for a grand building or large capital to begin operating. For them, the most important thing is to build public trust first, then grow the business gradually.
This choice was not without reason. As an urban ward, Kober has different characteristics compared to a rural village. There is no Village-Owned Enterprise (BUMDes) to serve as a business embryo, no large land available to build an outlet, and the majority of its residents are not farmers. These conditions meant the formation of KDKMP truly started from zero.
KDKMP Kober Chairman Abdul Jahir admitted he never imagined leading the cooperative. When the village consultation was held in mid-2025, he attended with the intention of becoming a board member of the Village Community Empowerment Institution (LPMK). However, the forum had other plans. His name emerged as the chairman of the newly introduced Koperasi Merah Putih. Instead of refusing, he chose to first study the direction of the programme.
“After being trusted, I studied the vision of this national strategic programme. I saw that the concept was good, so we formed a team with the same perception, and some already had businesses so the cooperative could start operating immediately,” he said.
The process of selecting the management was carried out with unusual considerations. Abdul Jahir did not just look for people willing to serve as administrators, but those who already had business experience so they could immediately run the cooperative’s economic activities. For him, a cooperative is not merely a social organisation. It carries the responsibility of managing members’ money while building a business that must grow healthily.
Therefore, an agreement was built from day one: to maintain integrity and transparency by safeguarding public trust. This was done to prevent the cooperative from stalling midway due to a lack of transparency. This commitment was born from the experience of seeing many cooperatives fail to develop due to weak governance. Abdul Jahir and the management do not want KDKMP Kober to repeat a similar story.
For him, trust is capital far more valuable than money. The management chose not to rush into running all seven business units that are the development focus of Koperasi Merah Putih. Instead, they started with the simplest business: trade. Rice, eggs, and LPG were chosen because they have a fast capital turnover and are needed by the community every day. This approach unexpectedly opened up opportunities they had never imagined before.