I want to back to the end of 2007, early 2008
When I asked to my husband Danny, to build a house in his village Toraja.
I'm very tired back then
after I worked as the Secretary general of National Commission on Violance against Women
or KOMNAS Perempuan
I want to rest while reading books or writing books
when we start building the house on early 2008
I often took a walk around our house to paddy field, to bamboo forest
Around our house
I shock, when I walked around
because there's a lot of babies that carried by grannies
it's definetly they are not their mother, but an older women.
but the babies' faces look oriental
So thier face looks like me
Because my mother is a chinese from bandung.
and my father is a javanese from Pekalongan
most of the babies look like this
So I asked, why there's so many Chinese babies around here?
Then the answer: "Yes because the father are Chinese".
"Where this Chinese come from?"
"from Malaysia."
"why they are here?"
"bacause they don't have IC (Identity Card)"
From the stories that I've gathered,
then I found out that
There's a lot of Torajan women went abroad to make a living
they went to Kalimantan, and go to Malaysia in northern part of Kalimantan island.
in the northern part of Borneo
There they work and a lot of them get pregnant.
and of course they pregnant outside of marriage,
So they couldn't get an IC, and this childern cloundn't get the legal birth certificate.
and they couldn't live there.
so this mothers go back to the village to give birth.
then because they need money so they went back again to Malaysia.
Then I started to think. "Why it should be this way?"
At the same time I frequently visited my mother in law village in Sa'dan
it's a center for weaving in Toraja.
There's so many woman weaving but most of them are very old.
And I notice that on the early 2008 there's few buyer.
it's because the decline of tourism
because of Bali Bombing
It's after the Bomb Bali I and Bomb Bali II. But Toraja tourism doesn't back on track.
So my mind start thinking,
if Torajan Women could stay in their kampong, with their family and make money out of weaving.
It would be a great, if it could become an option
It could be another choice beside to go abroad, where they could face the risk of violence and being impregnated.
Even in newspaper we could read a lot of Indonesian woman who worked aboard get back in coffin.
So starting from that point, I start thinking "lets try it".
Me and my husband founded Torajamelo, which later helped by my sister Nina.
In a form of foundation because we know that we will working closely with weaver community.
As well as a limited company because we need to develop the business to maintain the sustainability.
Toraja Melo means the Beauty Toraja.
We start to work since 2008, then form the legal entity since 2010
A long the way, since 2014 Torajamelo partnering with PEKKA: Female Head Family.
which work in 34 provinces in Indonesia, with members around 50 thousand female head family.
Their struggle is to push the government to recognise women role as head of family
and these women gain their independent.
with PEKKA we work with them in 5 regions, in Toraja, Mamasai in Sulawesi, and in Adonara, Lembata and Larantuka in East Nusa Tenggara.
We have 3 criteria in choosing our working community or partners.
1st the community should be based in village where they sending a lot of female migrant workers.
Even though those women always recognised as foreign income heroes,
Actually there's a huge damage on families that they left behind.
the children left behind then raised by their grand mother or grand father
raised "unnormaly" without their mother.
And we start getting report or news that a lot of female child become incest victims of their grand father.
Don't think that their grand father is an old man aged 70-80s
Because there's a lot of people married at very young age in the villages, so their grand father aged around 40 year old.
So there's a lot of negative impact to the family who left by their mothers.
So the 1st criteria is a village who left behind by female migrant worker.
Second, this community haven't received any support from donors or government.
and the 3rd, this community should have an art community or weaver culture.
Starting end of 2019, early 2020 we work with Oxfam.
Torajamelo working with two new community in West Nusa Tenggara or Lombok, in Sukarara Village and Pringgasela.
then with 3 communities in East Nusa Tenggara, in Oesena, West Timor, In Kupang District, in Biloto, South Central Timor District.
And in Maubesi North Central Timor.
Basically we work with around 1100 to 1500 weaver for 3-5 years of struggle to raise their income in the future.
a long the way strategically we developed a three pronged approach.
So, our three work approach
to fulfil the body-mind-spirit needs of this female weavers.
Body is the part of Toraja Melo, where we connect the weavers to the global markets.
so they could fulfil their bodily needs, to earn income.
Then Mind is part of PEKKA, through community organizing, to teach mindset change.
so this women could be independent, regain their dignity.
By establishing a co-op, it's a women co-op which the members are the weaver them self.
Then starting last year we heard stories from this women,
who faced a lot of violent, domestically, or by custom.
State violent, and other kind of violent, we just ready by the end of last year.
Together with NAPIESV on taking care of their spiritual aspect.
to start discussion to create a safe zone for them.
Because NAPIEVS (National Organization of Asians and Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence) is an organization that founded by Nina Jusuf my sister to help women victim of sexual violent.
a lot of problem faced by this women.
for example there's one women in Adonara left by his husband for 13 years to work in Malaysia
She left behind by his husband with two sons.
this husband just gone without sending any money or news. He just gone.
Suddenly 13 years after this mother raised her sons.
Educated his sons until they went to university, and become active as member of PEKKA
her husband got back out of nowhere; and start to manage their family and restricting her to be involved in gathering.
So it's not that easy as creating a safe house in the United State for example,
and drive her husband away, because they are part of a tribe.
so we have to discuss to get a consensus, and this mother as a member of co-op could borrow money to buy an outboard engines for her husband to have a job.
This kind of ideas wouldn't be agreed by "normal" or western feminist.
but we couldn't just do it,
and for that we start a discussion to find out what kind of safe zone that we could create for this women in tribal customary context.
And we found out that for example in Adonara, Lembata the zone for women is weaving.
when women start weaving with their weaving tools, it's their safe zone, it's forbidden for men to be inside that room.
So all their body-mind-spirit is connected to their weaving tools, we started creating weaving space together.
this space acts as their economical space and as their safe zone as well.
a long the way, those women economic condition start improving,
at the same time with University of Sydney, Australia we start an objective and neutral impact assessment.
which shows that Toraja Melo works for 12 years bring improvement to the economic condition.
For example in Toraja, those weaver gain income double than the income of civil servant minimum regional standart in Toraja.
it's generate wellfare.
Suddenly the Covid-19 hit and the economy start falling back again.
for that we start WITTOCorona campaign, where we buy out from 10 of our working area.
and sell it with a small margin in order to maintan the cashflow of weavers
at the same time with Covid-19 now become our Boss.
Torajamelo starting regeneration we call it Torajamelo 4.0
Now Toraja Melo work under younger leadership.
and they shift Torajamelo to the digital era,
to e-commerce.
So we could keep growing the their economy, raise the income of the weaver and our community in our working area.
while preserving the Indonesian weaving culture.
At the same time we actively campaigning in national and international market
Offline or online.
To raise the pride of Indonesian younger generation toward Indonesian woven fabric.
So that is our hope and we will keep going.