Housewives Cooperatives: Cebongan, Yogyakarta, Central Java

By Barrie | May 11th, 2007 | No Comments

A group of housewives gather in the living room of a residence in Cebongan village, Sleman regency, some of them displaying a variety of merchandise in front of them. Among these products are foods, herbal medicines, consumer goods and clothing. While some women seen involved in a serious discussion, others were conducting business transactions with each other. Another group of women were engaged in similar activities in the guest room of the house.

When the chairperson of the Rizky Toyyibah Cooperative delivered a formal welcome to open the meeting, the women stopped their activities and responded in kind, turning their attention to the meeting.

Earlier, the same group of housewives had gathered to conduct their activities at a house in Bantul regency; at another time, they met at a house in Yogyakarta municipality.

“We deliberately hold the meetings in different areas or houses. That way, we will be able to get to know each other much better, not just the person but where we all live as well,” chairwoman Enggarwati said recently.

Rizky Toyyibah Cooperative is a group of housewives whose main objective is to mutually empower themselves through business.
At the group’s monthly meetings, held on the second Wednesday of each month, every single member of the group is encouraged to bring along their sales merchandise.

In this way, said Enggarwati, every member would have an equal opportunity to introduce their products to the rest of the group, thus expanding their marketing coverage automatically.

“I do feel the benefits of joining the group. Many members are now also my customers,” member Eko Purwati, 44, said.

She added that a separate group she had joined last year had also helped her a great deal in terms of working capital.

“Every time I need additional capital, especially if I have received an express order, I can simply make a call and borrow some (money) from the cooperatives,” said Eko, who sells fried chicken.

But the most important aspect of joining the cooperatives, Eko said, was the chance she had to make friends with other members while doing business and mutually empowering themselves. This naturally led to an improvement in the quality of their products as well as an increase their business capital.

Eny Swandayani, another member, concurs with Eko’s experience, and said that being a cooperative member had helped her often with the additional capital she needed to develop her business.

“I can borrow up to Rp 5 million from the cooperatives whenever I need additional capital,” said Eny, a clothing and apparel supplier.

Established initially in 2000 as a businesswomen’s association of Aisyiyah — the woman’s division of Indonesia’s second largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah — the cooperative was registered in 2004.

In so doing, the cooperative is legally entrusted with managing a total working capital of Rp 120 million. Of this amount, Rp 20 million comes from the Yogyakarta government and the remaining Rp 100 million is provided by the office of the State Minister for Women’s Empowerment. Aside from this, the cooperative has its own capital of about Rp 20 million, obtained in the form of a soft loan.

Rizky Toyyibah draws partly from this fund that the cooperative helps expand the working capital of its members, most of whom run small-scaled or home businesses.

“We are planning to establish a showroom in the near future so that we can display all our members’ products,” said Lies Natsir of Aisyiyah Yogyakarta, who assisted in establishing the cooperative.

She added that the membership of Rizky Toyyibah Cooperative currently number 60, but it planned to invite more housewives running small-scale businesses to join up.

The cooperative, Lies said, was established mainly to assist its members with marketing, capital, raw materials and quality improvement. It also provides members with entrepreneurship training workshops.

“The central idea is to help each other. As a gudeg seller, I have also felt the benefits of joining the cooperative,” said Lies, who runs a several restaurants in Yogyakarta and its surroundings that specialize in the traditional dish.

According to Lies, what was also advantageous was that through the cooperative, a member did not need collateral to take out a loan.

This had been of great help for small-scale or home businesses, which generally had very limited access to financial support.

“Not all small-scale businesspeople have direct access to banks. The cooperative tries to fill in this gap,” said Lies, adding that a few banks had also entrusted the cooperative to manage their funds for small ventures.

– Sri Wahyuni