SE Sulawesi handicrafts saved

SE Sulawesi handicrafts saved

By La Ode Aminuddin

KENDARI, Southeast Sulawesi (Antara): When nentu handicraft workers in Muna regency, Southeast Sulawesi, were disinclined to make handicrafts characteristic of the area due to a lack of customers and low prices -- a village woman took up the business.

Wa Nia, 45, a resident of Korihi village, Katobu subdistrict in Muna, was optimistic in 1998 that handicrafts made of plaited nentu (rattan-like forest plants) would be much in demand because it does not exist in other regions.

"When I started the business, many people in the village called me crazy because I worked on something that they considered not worth the energy because the price was low," said Nia, a mother of five.

One needs a lot of time and effort to produce a nentu item. A cake basket called bosara, for example, takes a worker one week to produce while the price is only Rp 25,000 (US$3), and few people are interested in buying it.

It is increasingly difficult to find the nentu material for handicrafts. The plant grows only on Muna island, where workers have to go a great distance to find it. Often, one has to spend the whole day to gather a mere 20 kilograms of the plant.

Nia said that at first she was discouraged by the prospect of the back-breaking work entailed in finding the raw material, but her motivation to preserve handicrafts characteristic of Muna eventually overcame her discouragement.

Although nentu handicrafts do not sell very well, she has not been discouraged and continues making them. She does not care whether her products sell now, next week or next month.

The determination of the farmer's wife to preserve nentu handicrafts has won the interest of the Family Welfare Movement of the local subdistrict. The organization always involves Nia in every exhibition it organizes.

She has also drawn the attention of the industry and trade ministry's office in Muna. Officials have involved her in a series of training programs, at regency, provincial and national levels.

"The training programs have helped me sharpen my skills and develop my business know-how as well as problem-solving," she said.

Wa Nia, a junior high school graduate, made the first breakthrough for her handicraft business by involving the National Handicraft Agency at both regional and provincial levels.

She sell her products, generally household items, through the local representative office of the National Handicraft Agency and shops in the towns of Raha and Kendari.

"The system works. In the past, when I handled the marketing by myself, only three or four items were sold each month, but now the figure has increased to 50," she said.

The price of her products has also increased. For instance, the price of a bosara has risen from Rp 25,000 to Rp 45,000; a key ring from Rp 1,000 to Rp 2,500.

Now, Nia is overwhelmed with orders. To meet soaring orders, Nia has recruited women from the neighborhood to develop the business.

At the beginning, she recruited 10 women workers and formed a company she called Nentu Mekar Baru. With the business continuously growing, she now employs 60 workers.

"With the existing workforce, I still cannot fulfill the incoming orders worth Rp 25 million a month. We are able to meet orders worth Rp 5 million a month," said Nia.

The orders mostly come from Ujungpandang, Jakarta and Surabaya. The most serious problem hampering production capacity is the lack of human resources, according to Nina.

Moreover, the supply of raw material is also a problem because the forest where the nentu plant grows on Muna island has shrunk due to the development of residential areas, plantations and land clearance for food crops.

Therefore, the woman who makes a monthly net profit of at least Rp 3 million has appealed to the Muna regional administration and other related agencies to preserve the forest where nentu grows.

No technology

To improve workers' skills and increase productivity, Nentu Mekar Baru holds monthly training programs. Sometimes she involves instructors from the regency administration.

"These handicrafts cannot make use of technology to increase productivity because all the work is done by hand. Therefore I try to upgrade the workers' skills," she said.

Through training that emphasizes the technique of neat and fast plaiting, the women workers from poor families are now able to finish a bosara in one week. In the past they needed two weeks.

Nia, who won an Upakarti Award from the Central government in 1993 in recognition for her dedication, is considering recruiting and training women workers from neighboring subdistricts in a bid to improve her company's productivity.

"In fact the idea came to me a long time ago but it never materialized because of my limited capital. Fortunately, People's Prosperity Business Credit (an antipoverty drive, Kukesra) has offered aid amounting to Rp 25 million," said Nia.

Her ambition is to make nentu handicrafts one of Southeast Sulawesi's main non-oil export commodities. Beside her, there are another 15 such handicraft producers throughout the province.

Therefore, apart from increasing production, she is also improving the quality of her products and is always trying to involve herself in export-oriented activities.

"When I participated in an exhibition in Jakarta in 1996, a South Korean businessman asked me to export 1,000 bosara per month. I had to refuse the offer because at that time I could not produce that many," she said.

Nia's perseverance in the development of nentu handicrafts has been recognized by the National Handicraft Agency chairwoman in Southeast Sulawesi, Mrs. Andi Norma Kaimoeddin, who says that in her opinion the village woman is the most meritorious in the development of nentu handicrafts in Southeast Sulawesi.

Maju Ilias Padang, chief of the industry and trade ministry's regional office in Southeast Sulawesi, says the village woman is a pioneer because she had the backbone to start her business when everyone else had quit because it was considered no longer profitable. And she has succeeded.