Sewing, Reselling and Agricultural Progress from Women Resilience Program

Through the Women Resilience Program, HSBC and YCAB are working to help 25 groups of women micro entrepreneurs with a total of 250 participants in various areas in Jakarta and Semarang to create new income streams. This program provides sewing training and guidance to produce and sell high-quality handcrafted items such as masks, scarves, tote bags and others. The goals to be achieved from this training are so that women micro entrepreneurs can survive and adapt due to the covid-19 pandemic. It is hoped that they can also increase income, add new skills, especially in sewing, and increase group cohesiveness.

In order to support sewing training for the participants, mentors who are experts in their fields and sewing equipment of the highest quality were brought in. Until now, the training has entered phase 1 in the form of basic skills in sewing, managing finances and business. Phase 1 was carried out from June to August, and the whole process will take place in 3 phases until February 2021. Participants will be given online training, mentorship, and monitoring for each phase. Ibu Henny, one of the participant took the opportunity to try to make masks from the skills her parents passed on. The masks she made receive positive responses from the public.

The program also helps 26 groups of mothers who are YCAB Ventures clients to resell household items such as lunch boxes, drinking bottles, cleaning tools and other things at Dusdusan.com platform. The participants came from the Jakarta branch (Kedoya, Tanah Abang, Tambora), Tangerang, Depok, and Semarang. Since it was implemented in July 2020, participant mothers have been receiving training in the form of mentoring per group and then practice selling at Dusdusan.com. They carry out promotions through personal social media accounts to direct potential buyers to the Dusdusan.com catalog. It is hoped that through this program, YCAB clients will have the skills to do entrepreneurship online and increase their source of income.

One of YCAB Ventures beneficiaries and also the group leader is Ibu Dewi who is a food trader and occasionally receives sewing orders at home. When she got the news that her group had received Dusdusan.com’s help, she jumped in at the opportunity. She posts everything in the catalog of Dusdusan.com and distributes it to everyone who is interested. As someone who is experienced in selling, she adapts to the current conditions where not everyone can buy with cash right away. She provides payment installment option for a week, or a month, and she must know the customers.

“This program helped me to get a new income and I can send my children to school. Some even go to college in Jakarta and receive a scholarship program.”, she said.

Meanwhile, YCAB and HSBC are working with Tanijoy in fostering small farmers to continue their agricultural activities, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. This collaboration allows farmers to get financing, agricultural assistance and a market channel to sell their crops. The activity will last for six months in Pangalengan, West Java with potato and tomato cultivation. A total of 20 farmers participated in this program.

Starting last July, Tanijoy has carried out surveys and made project plans. Then the farmers started planting potatoes and tomatoes in August, and are now entering the harvest preparation period. In this assistance, farmers are also reminded to follow all functional activities in plant care so that they can develop the crops optimally. Discussion activities were also held to discuss the farmers’ weekly and monthly activity plans. The whole coaching will last until next December with the sale of the farmers’ crops.