A stack of Tenun weave cloth by Torajamelo’s weavers (Source: Torajamelo)

Dinny Jusuf is the Founder of Torajamelo, an Indonesian company which bring forward Indonesian woven cloths while working with marginalised women’s communities in areas of female migrant workers exporters. She has a long term experience in corporate banking, training consultancy and was the former Secretary General of Komnas Perempuan (National Commission on Anti Violence Against Women) before she embarked on a new journey with Torajamelo, when she is supposed to “take a break”.

In this episode of aNERDspective (our NERD talk show where we converse with amazing friends about their textile adventure and perspectives), Dinny candidly shared her decade-long joys and struggles while nurturing Torajamelo. 

Note: Full video is available on IG TV and this transcript has been edited for reading format.

Tony Sugiarta (TS): Welcome Mbak Dinny to another episode of aNERDspective. It will be a very long history of Torajamelo, since the day it started in 2008, I believe. It will be a long history but we will try to get as many stories as possible. Probably we can start with introduction of yourself, you background, and your journey in starting Torajamelo.

Dinny Jusuf (DJ): Thank you Pak Tony for inviting me here, it was a nice surprise when Lia contacted me, like “Oh, in Singapore”.

So let me introduce myself, my name is Dinny Jusuf, I always called myself as a mother, wife, and a dreamer. My children laugh at me, but I do not care, because I am a proud mother of two adult children. Both my children are in Australia, so we have not seen each other in a long time now. Usually I visit them or they visit me, but now we are all in a lockdown in our own countries, Sena is in Sydney, Rani is in Melbourne, but they are okay. I am the wife of my husband, Dani, he is an Orang Asli Toraja (Toraja native), that is why I am talking to you now from Toraja. I am above the clouds, I am 15,000 meters above sea level. It is quite nice here.

I am a dreamer because since I was young I have been dreaming. I have been working for a better Indonesia, because I love Indonesia so much. That is my basic background. I have been working in my career – I was a banker for a long time. I was working for Citibank Jakarta and because my children were growing up at that time, I quit to take care of my children. When I was out of 9-5 job, I did quite a few social works in the field of environment and human rights, specifically women’s rights.

In 1998, if you remember, or some of you remember, if you are old enough, it was a financial crisis in Indonesia. Together with some friends, we established an organisation that we called The Voice of Concerned Mother (Suara Ibu Peduli) and together we help the rural poor mothers, because at that time prices, (of things) such as milk, rice were high and we do several programs to help them.

There was another part, in which the activists went on a demonstration. If you remember, there was a May riot that was really bad. In May 1998, when there was killing and raping of Chinese women in Indonesia, in Jakarta and several other cities in Indonesia. That really changed my life. I work with women activists, human rights activists, but after that my children, my son actually, were scared of getting out because they are partially Chinese. My mother is Chinese and my father is Javanese. We had no problem so far until the May riot happened. It was really bad. So with that, my children (and I) went to Perth to study and to be in a safer place.

After that, when they were independent enough, they started university and I came back to Indonesia. Then, I was asked to become Secretary General of The National Commission of Anti-Violence Against Women or Komisi Nasional Anti Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan (Komnas Perempuan). It is a state / national body working under the President. It was established by President Habibie, because of the request of Indonesian women activists so that something like May riots will never happen again in Indonesia. It was a nice turn around, I worked in Komnas Perempuan for about 4 years, and then I got burnt out.

If you look a little bit under the surface of Indonesian’s life, it looks peaceful and beautiful, but underneath it has a lot of violence, especially for women, such as domestic violence, customary law, state violence, religious violence, etc.,and it almost broke me. I basically resigned and asked my husband to just build me a house in Toraja, I just want to be quiet, to be alone, I want to read and write a book about my experience in working with women in Indonesia. So the plan was in end of 2007-2008.

As we were building the house – because I like hiking, I like walking around, living in hills and valleys – when I took a walk in a bamboo forest in the villages, I started seeing Chinese looking babies, they look like me, among the indigenous people.

I asked them, “How come?”  

And they said, “Because their fathers are Chinese.”

I said, “How come Torajanese women with Chinese men?”

Because, somehow, many Torajanese women go to Malaysia and Kalimantan to work for Chinese families, and one way or another, they got pregnant. As it was outside of marriage, they cannot stay because the baby cannot get IC. So they have to give birth in the village in Toraja and leave the babies with the grandmas before they go back to Malaysia to work. They need to work.

At the same time, I also like to go to my mother-in-law’s village, which is the centre of weaving. At that time, at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, Toraja, which was supposed to be the second destination for tourism in Indonesia never took off after Bali Bombing I & II in 2002 and 2004. There were a lot of weavers – hand-woven weaving or back-strap weaving. The weavers are old and nobody was buying.

When I ask around, “What is going on?”  

They said, “Because there were no tourists, because only tourists buy our products.”  

I said, “What about The Torajanese?”. 

They said, “The Torajanese are too embarrassed to buy their own weaving.”

So, again that goes back to Soeharto’s time. During Soeharto’s time for 32 years, we were supposed to wear batik. Batik is THE thing. If you go to formal ceremonies or parties, you wear batik. And then batik was registered as a UNESCO heritage. It surprised me also, being half Javanese, to see how the indigenous or other ethnic groups that they are forced to wear batik. They forget and they do not respect their own hand-woven textile, including my husband and my mother-in-law.

Your mother-in-law does not wear the local textile?

No. Because, again, that was the pressure, the condition was made that tenun (woven) is nothing. It is batik. At that time, I was only playing (iseng-iseng) (with the thought): what if Torajanese women can stay at home and make money from weaving? I think that would give then an option rather than being raped, or pregnant, or abused. It was just a simple thought that I had actually. So I started doing that, I started talking to the weavers, going up and down the valley, and collecting their weavings.

After a while, I started talking to my husband and he was not really supportive. My mother-in-law was also not supportive. For them, it is just a piece of ordinary cloth and another thing that is a little bit sensitive to talk about is that there is a caste system in Toraja. There are the noble, the free people, and the slaves. People do not really talk about that because it is very sensitive, but it is still happening and exists. My husband’s family come from a very high nobility and I am not supposed to mingle with the locals basically. But I did it anyway.

.. She saw the motifs which were simple, she knew that the art and culture were disappearing.

Then I started buying the hand-woven textiles from the weavers and brought them to Jakarta. I talked to one of my best friends, Obin, who has been working in batik for the longest time and she said, you better create something out of this, make some dresses, make bags, etc., before this disappears. At that time, I did not understand what she meant. But she is an expert. When she saw the motifs which were simple, she knew that the art and culture were disappearing. That was the start of Torajamelo, which means beautiful Toraja.

In 2010, my husband, my sister, and I, we established the foundation and the Limited Liability (Company) Torajamelo. We want to introduce the beauty of Toraja, the weaving, and also to work with the farmers. Torajamelo was legally established in 2010. We have just celebrated on 22nd October, our tenth legal anniversary. So that is the background. It came from a very simple idea actually.

It was a very organic journey, from just observing, when you went back to “take a break”.

Yes, my son always says, “mama you cannot keep still anyway. I know you will not retire.”

So you bought those textiles and brought them to Jakarta. What did you do with them?

I talked to my friends, who were designers / fashion designers (of dresses, shoes, bags). I just worked with them and created the products. It surprised me because in less than 6 months, using my connection, I sold about 100 pieces. So I was thinking, wow, there is a market for them. So I started selling mouth to mouth, to little exhibitions here and there, and it started spreading up.

My siblings, sister and brother, live in California, but they always come and visit me, or I visit them. It happened at that time in 2010. My sister, Nina, came. She is a fashion designer by education and by profession, and she is also a humanist activist. She said, “Kamu gila! (You are crazy). You do not understand anything about fashion and design but you are doing all this. Let me help you.” She generously came and stayed in Indonesia for 6 months, every year, starting 2010-2018 and help me in the fashion side. While me, with my background finance and marketing, I take care of the business. That is how we develop Torajamelo.

From my work in Komnas Perempuan, I knew that there is a gap between communicating products and what the market likes or wants to buy. There is a big gap. In that gap is actually product design and, of course, public awareness. When Nina and I started Torajamelo in 2010, we were focused on marketing (me) and designing (Nina). We want to make money so that the weavers can make money and we can keep buying.

But in 2014, I realised that those master weavers were dying. They die one by one. So I am thinking, why should we do marketing while the weavers are disappearing. So with that, we switched. We switched to community organising. We focused in community organising, meaning teaching them to organise themselves to be cooperatives. We believe that with cooperatives we can make them stronger together. We also teach them about the designs and motifs that would sell in the market. It took over 10 years of our life, took almost all of our savings and basically we have no holidays. But I have to say, me and Nina are very happy until now. It has been a hard work. It is so exhausting. A lot of heartache, betrayal, and it is not easy.

For example, the scarf I am wearing now, it is a scarf from Toraja, it is called bunga-bunga, when I started in 2010 there were only 2 grandmothers who could weave this.

And I asked her, “Only 2? Why did you not teach other women?”

They said, ”no, it is a family secret.” I said, “no, teach your daughters.”

But they are in Malaysia, they are working as housemaids or sex workers in Malaysia, and some in Singapore. They do not want to teach anyone except their daughters.

So I said, “Then it will disappear.”

They keep to themselves. Until we established a cooperative under Torajamelo’s mentorship, those two tough grandmas then started feeling that the other members of the cooperative are also their family. Then they start teaching. That is what happened.

I was about to ask, while your sister teach about designs and colour schemes, what is the effort in revitalising old motifs and patterns? 

We had to do research, looking at old patterns and techniques. Basically, the more intricate motifs in Toraja have disappeared. In a way, it is good for us are as we are not bound by adat or customary law. When we go further east, the customary law still exists, very strongly. In Toraja we have the freedom. So I looked around. Basically all textiles of Toraja have disappeared and have been bought by collectors abroad. So the best collections are in Canberra (Australia), Tokyo, New York, and maybe Geneva.

We do not have samples, the weavers cannot remake because they have to touch and see the back and front part. It is not easy. Only with our little savings, when somebody offered and showed us an old piece, then we worked with the weavers (to reproduce old motifs). So far we have managed to revive several motifs and techniques in Toraja. So far so good. We train about 250 weavers in Toraja and we established a cooperative.

We had a little impact assessment last year in 2019. It is an objective neutral impact assessment by the University of Sydney. I was so scared that they would fire me for not working properly, but when I saw them, I think that we did well. Many of the weavers are already earning, pre-COVID, of course. Post-COVID is a different story. Pre-COVID19, they have been earning double the public servant (Pegawai Negeri Sipil). They are earning with an average of 5 million Rupiah (~360 USD, 480SGD) per month, which is quite big. It is about their dignity actually more than about money, because now they are independent and they can make money. That is a little story about Toraja.

So you guys are a cooperative and they are working under Torajamelo as an employee or how (is it structured)?

Good question. Some people said it is a stupidity that Nina and I do. We do fundraising, teach them, help them in marketing, but we do not believe in “owning” them or that they have to sell to Torajamelo. Even with the cooperative, they choose to name themselves, we did train them, but they are independent. For Toraja, very often, pre-COVID19, we were on the waiting list because they had so many orders. So we have to wait. They have freedom to sell to anybody. Now we are working in 10 areas in Indonesia, including Toraja and Mamasa in Sulawesi, Adonara, Lembata and Larantuka in East Nusa Tenggara.

We started working in partnership in 2014 with PEKKA (Pemberdayaan Perempuan Kepala Keluarga). They came to us and asked if we could help them in a livelihood program through weaving. We have been their partner since 2014. Basically we work with the weavers, they have around 5000 weavers. We touch around 1000 weavers in those areas, all are members of cooperatives. At the beginning of this year, we started to work with 5 more areas: two areas in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara and three areas in West Timor. This is facilitated by Oxfam Australia and the UK. 

Could you share a little bit more about the partnerships and collaborations with other organisations?

We work in partnership and collaboration, everybody is equal. For example, when we work with the weavers in Toraja, we started first and then we ask PEKKA to help. PEKKA helps us to establish the cooperatives. PEKKA work with those single women in Indonesia and they are experts in community organising. They are expert in establishing cooperatives. So Torajamelo, (we started) first in Toraja and then PEKKA (joined in).

It takes a long time for a community organising because you are changing the mindset.

In Adonara and Lembata, PEKKA has been working there on community organising since 2002. It takes a long time because you are changing your mindset, so it costs a lot for PEKKA. They do their own fundraising to change the mindset of these women to become independent women who were under the pressure, under the violence of adat law, religious law, domestic violence, and so on. They are creating amazing women. In Adonara and Lembata, PEKKA is already strong with the women cooperative. Torajamelo then came in for livelihood (programs) through weaving.

That is how we work. We did our own fundraising to do the training. We train them on product design and public awareness, meaning exhibition at textile museum Jakarta, in various exhibitions like Indonesia Fashion Week, and so on. We always involve the weavers, sometimes we make them into the models. Most of the time, they will come to the exhibition and fashion show and sell the product so they can see and talk to the people directly.

In Mamasa, West Sulawesi, another poor area, Torajamelo and PEKKA came in at the same time. PEKKA came in and did the community organising. Torajamelo came in and started doing livelihood through weaving. In less than 2 years, it was very fast, we established a cooperative with about 350 members. They started making money and their income start increasing. That is the partnership of Torajamelo and community organiser PEKKA. It is a good formula. After that, they (the weavers) are free to sell to anybody and any company. Of course, they become partners of Torajamelo. Torajamelo only orders weavings from the cooperatives. 

So you purchase textiles from different weavers and then you convert them into products that you sell under Torajamelo, correct?

Yes. So, we created fashion, gifts products, homeware, or small goods. Now we have started selling art cloth, like the best quality of ikat from Lembata, it is very beautiful.

Cool! Do they create their own new cloth or they revitalise old motifs?

They are revitalised. With Torajamelo, we sort of become regular buyers. At the end of the day, they want money, they need money, right? So, with the guarantee that somebody would buy, they are very excited about weaving. They also start the regeneration. When the young women saw that their mother or grandmother could make money from weaving, they start learning again. Before they could not care less because there was no money. They went to Malaysia and Saudi Arabia but they did not come back.

Maybe I should share with you the criteria of Torajamelo when doing a collaboration. First, the areas of the pocket for migrant workers. In the different parts of Indonesia, there are pockets of areas that supply migrant workers and to different countries, for example Torajanese tend to go to Borneo and Malaysia. People from Sumba tend to go and to work in Singapore and they get pregnant with Bangladeshi workers. There are many Bangladeshi babies in Sumba. In Sukabumi, there are many Saudi Arabian babies.

Indonesia is changing and I hate the term that they are called the “foreign exchange heroes” or pahlawan devisa. They suffer very badly. We work with areas of migrant workers. Second, we choose areas which have not been helped or supported by either government programs, NGOs or donor agencies and the third is that they have potential art and culture of weaving because our entry point is weaving. That is how we choose our areas and now we work in about 10 areas with 1500 weavers. 

It is a very huge progress from since when you started. 

I learned a lot. Through this, I got to meet Lewa and Kiki of Sekar Kawung, so it is amazing. 

Can you share some of the biggest challenges that you personally, or Torajamelo, have faced?

Always make me laugh because we always try to have a knowledge management, we publish books. We make short videos and films so that we have traces or tracks of what we have been doing. With Nani, the executive director of PEKKA, my partner in this, we started talking (and discussed that) we have been working for more than 5 years and we should start writing a book together about our experience. That will be Torajamelo’s 5th book actually because we have published several books. We make it small, full of colours, full of photos, so that people will read.

Nani and I locked ourselves twice for a week in my house in an apartment in Jakarta, so that we can write. We started “Ok, the (original) title was How To Develop A Community-Based Social Enterprise.” Let’s write this, so that we can share with other people. As the days go by, when we were sitting and writing the outline and then the content of the book, we kept bumping off to finding failure… after failure… after failure. Then I said “Hey, Nani, I think we have to change the title to How To Fail As A Community-Based Social Enterprise because we had so many failures that it is not funny.

Then I asked her, “So, why are we doing this? We do not become rich, we have to use our savings, often.” She looked at me and she said, “It is spirituality, Mbak Dinny. You and I are still friends even after we went through so many betrays and challenges. This is priceless.” Wow, that was beautiful! So, as I mentioned, the feeling that I am tired but I am happy doing this.

The hardest times, that I almost gave up, twice.

The first one was in 2012, when my sister and I found out that one of the senior coordinator of the weavers in Toraja made a fake proposal to the Ministry of Cooperative using our name and faking the signatures of our weavers. The weavers cannot read or write so they fake their signature and got some money from the government using our name, using our products as hers. I was so sad. I thought I was helping her, helping the weavers, how could she do that?

She is also the first cousin of my husband so it is in the family. It created havoc. It created problems in the family, in the big family because Torajanese is a clan. This is one of the clan members. I was called by the elder of the clan and he took out the trident. Then, he asked, “why did you do that?”. I said “what did I do?”. He answered, “that you reported and was upset that your cousin did this to Torajamelo and to you.” And I said, “she was doing the embezzlement, she ruined our name because it is a brand name. So she uses Torajamelo as a fake cooperative. Why blame me and my husband?” He then said, “but other people are doing it, government people are doing it, making fake cooperatives and fake proposals. It is no big deal.”

So, I was blamed and I said “No, you should not blame me.” My mother-in-law was the one who defended me until now. That leader only got into jail last year for embezzling the money of the government. I was blamed, I was at fault. For me, it is like all upside down that I almost gave up. I told Nina, “why are we doing this? We want to help but they do not feel that we are helping them.” Nina said “Yeah, but that is only one person, you know the others need our help”, so we continue but I almost got sick. I was so upset. 

How many years in that Torajamelo was in that situation?

2012, so that was 2 years as we were just establishing ourselves. We were really serious about this. There was no investor or other donor. It was just Nina and me, some people save up money for their old age, we spent our old age savings, but we are happy.

The second one was in 2017, when one of the donors accused us of not using the money properly, which was not true. They did the audit on us and they could not find anything wrong with us, of course. I told them that we are not doing this for money and I was an ex-banker. I am not ruining my name for something that I do in my old days. But it was very mean. In the end, I suspected it and I knew it was an internal feud that they take out on somebody else. In the process, because they could not find anything wrong with Torajamelo, they went to the weavers community and they did an audit on the weavers community. Of course, they failed because they cannot read and write.

They then asked us to return hundreds of millions of their grant and we did it. It almost made us bankrupt. More importantly, it is about our relationship with the weavers that almost collapsed because they thought it was us who are doing it but it was the donor.

Again, the weavers were under the leadership of Nani. That is what she meant by that we are still friends. We do until now trust each other. That was a hard time, again because they are the ones who have money, some donors tend to look down on people, on the grantees. It was a very hard lesson, but we survived, we are still standing. So, those are the two highlights about betrayals, but they turned out okay.

It was beautiful when we had a traditional ceremony with the weavers when we did the cleansing ceremony when everybody cried, screamed, yelled, cursed. They were so hurt and so ashamed because this donor sent people to start accusing them in front of the public and the community. It hurt them very much, but we went through it and we are still together. 

Thank you for sharing that. It is really not easy.  Definitely trust is very important, especially when we are working with other people and especially when we want to help people.

One of the goals (then) was to have an exhibition in Jakarta, in the Textile Museum, because the weavers’ request to Torajamelo in 2014 was to bring their weaving to Jakarta, to show to Jakarta people that they could weave well. We make it a goal and then because of this donor issue and the money was taken out, we have no money. I said to them, “let’s just do the exhibition, do or die, we bring your weavings, you come to Jakarta.” You become the models and all that.

People like Lewa and friends in Wastra Indonesia, they just chip in. They work like crazy to have that exhibition and I think that become one of the biggest exhibitions at The Textile Museum with about 5,000 or 6,000 people came. Young people came, volunteers came and helped us. The weavers’ families chipped in 50,000 Rupiah (~3.60 USD, 4.80 SGD) each so the weavers could fly to Jakarta. We just cried all the time during the exhibition because we did it and it became very beautiful. 

I was just wondering because you are working with this areas where they are going to be exported as a foreign workers. Has there been a change in the ratio (of weavers to foreign workers) with your involvement?

If you read the impact assessment on our website and also some film clips, now more and more Torajanese women and women in NTT come back because they know they can make money from weaving. Again, this is pre COVID-19. With COVID-19, poverty step back to almost five to ten years, which scares me. So, this is scary and urgent. I have been going to government webinars and to see the projections that we set back for 2-10 years. Pre COVID-19 many people came back and start making money from weaving. Many do not go because they can stay and make money at home. So, there is direct impact for the communities.

Also the pride, for example we did it strategic promotion. For example, we promote Toraja weaving not in Toraja,and not in Indonesia. Nina and I joined exhibitions in Tokyo, Osaka, LA, Singapore and Milan, etc., because we know that Indonesians like anything from abroad. If anything is from abroad or appreciated abroad, then it must be good. We did that. Even my mother-in-law was saying, “people in Tokyo buy that piece of cloth?” I said, “yeah,really.” So they started thinking that it must be good then.

We then invited the Regency Head to Jakarta to Torajamelo’s fashion show and we asked him to come to the stage. He was so proud and he was amazed to see Toraja weaving in fashion shows, like Indonesia Fashion Week and all that. After he came back, he gave a regulation that every week, at least once a week, all the public servants and school children have to wear Torajanese tenun textile. It started the local market. Then they said, “yeah because in Tokyo people are wearing our weaving so we have to start.” Again, that reverse psychology, colonised mind. It worked. That is just the trick.

You mentioned about COVID-19 a little bit, how are you doing during COVID-19?

It is bad, especially because we work outside of Java. In Java, you can at least get the rice, the cooking oil and all that. When Jakarta or Java was locked down in March or April, I contacted our weavers in Lembata and Maubesi (Maubesi is in west Timor border with Timor Leste), a very dry place and and they said that the price of sembako (sembako refers to Indonesia’s nine essential cooking ingredients: rice, sugar, eggs, meat, flour, corn, fuel, cooking oil and salt.) go up 1.5 times because there is no transportation at that time.

So I asked them how can we help her, should I start fundraising to send her money and then their answer is amazing. It is about dignity and this is thanks to PEKKA and Oxfam for teaching these women. She said no, she just wants us to buy their weaving and then send the money to them. They do not want money for free. Then, I said okay. We then created a campaign “Weaving in The Time of Corona”, WITTO Corona Campaign. It is basically Torajamelo buying from our communities and we sell them to the market at a very low margin so that it can go fast. People buy and we send the money to the weavers. We work in partnership with a logistic company, JNE. They have been supporting us, they give free or heavily discounted cost to us and they pick up the weaving from village to village. It is amazing. They send them to Jakarta. So we have the campaign “Weaving in The Time of Corona” to help with the COVID-19. 

And how is the response so far?

The response so far is so good, but not by individual. We approach companies or corporations. So they buy one big lot for prizes or gifts but individuals are not so much. I could understand because most people care more about health and food, I guess. Tenun will be like the third or the fourth in your shopping list. I understand that it is not easy, but we use our network or we work with our network to buy 10 or 25 pieces. 

It is the same sentiment here as well because textiles are not priorities for most people.

Now, I would like to find out more about the announcement of the new CEO and the expansion. I would like to hear about your future plans about Torajamelo. It is exciting. 

I think one of these days you should interview Aparna. I have known Aparna for more than three years because she used to be our marketing lady through Angels of Impact in Singapore whom we have been working in and with Singaporeans for some time. I also feel that Singapore is the window for Southeast Asia. Aparna came two years ago to Jakarta and she is a high-flying executive for Lazada and Alibaba. She used to work for us Saturday and Sunday for Torajamelo. I asked her how come she knew (about Torajamelo) and she said that she has checked and looked at several social enterprises, but she thinks Torajamelo is one of very few “real” ones. The other ones are not real. Then, she started working.

Nina and I have been wanting to have a replacement, someone young to continue, but it is so hard to find somebody who are committed. Commitment is so hard to get, honesty and hard-working also. After a few months, Aparna came, we have to pivot and shift with this COVID-19, and I am not going to learn about all this application, even just managing Microsoft Office is hard enough for me.

Did she come as a volunteer or as a consultant? 

As a volunteer. Then I asked her, would you like to take over Torajamelo? And she said yes. So, it has been an interesting journey. Since 1 Jun 2020, she has been CEO of Torajamelo. With her, came along some new members who are young. We are not big and I never want to be big, even when with Nina. I wanted us to be agile to enjoy things and to work with a lot of people. I mean network, collaborate but with a small base and I think that pays well.  With this COVID-19, we have more work than we can handle.

We work in partnership and collaboration with many organisations and people, including with Sekar Kawung. We are now sister grantees from Maybank. It is exciting. So Maybank has a program called ASEAN Eco Weavers. I think Maybank is one of the only two or very few ASEAN corporations. As an ASEAN corporation you have to exist in ten ASEAN countries and Maybank does. So we are sister grantees for this year until next year and we work closely together for the weavers.

We are expecting Torajamelo and Sekar Kawung collaboration. 

Yes, both of us have started community-based cotton farms. I know… this is so exciting! And again, this is the initiative of the weavers when they told us they want to have their own cotton again because it has disappeared for some time. Sekar Kawung also is a regrowing cotton in Tuban in East Java and we are growing in NTT. 

Really exciting. What is your own personal plan? Retirement?

I wish I could. At least now, thanks to Aparna and the team, I can take Sunday off. Before I work 24/7 and now I can take Sunday off and take a walk with my dog. But, Torajamelo has three prongs, commerce, which is selling products, community-based tourism, which the villages of the weavers become tourist destinations, and the third one is consultancy. I have been taking care of the community-based tourism and consultancy. Many companies want to be good, green guys. We have 12 years-experience and really working with the community to take it to another level. 

One last question: what are your final thoughts on the future of Torajamelo and weaving in general, for Indonesian Tenun?

I think with this COVID-19, more and more people now realise that the little people – the micro, small and medium enterprises are actually the backbone of the economy. The government has now started having or establishing programs to help micro, small and medium enterprises, which should have started a long time ago. I have great hope that with this program, the micro enterprises will grow. Of course, you need to establish yourself into an organisation because if you are small you cannot grow fast. If you have a cooperative, then you can access training, working capital and the market. Indonesian government is now working very hard for that.

They have a campaign “Bangga Buatan Indonesia” (Indonesian Products with Pride) with the Ministry of Cooperatives. Last March, I was assigned by the Minister of State-Owned Enterprises, to become the Commissioner of PT Sarinah to revitalise Sarinah as the first department store in Indonesia, to become the window of Indonesia. What does it mean? It means to help mostly women, micro-enterprises to be on the international level. Of course, there is a lot to be done, the standardisation, training and all. I am involved with that and it is exciting to see how the government tries to help and to work with various programs.

My hope is that COVID-19 will take us to another level. It takes strength and patience, but with the right structure and regulations, I think we can survive this. I have trust because these women, the weavers in our communities and beyond, are very strong women. I think we can survive this, but with the help and support from the younger generations and technology. The hope is there.

I was talking to a friend this morning about how people keep saying that the millennials are spoiled. Thank God for my experience with the young people. I have been meeting wonderful, very dedicated, smart, and polite. Politeness is important for me. Young people are very polite, including the five interns who are now helping Torajamelo and working with Aparna, young designers from Berkley and they just want to work, come back to Indonesia and work for Indonesia. They want to travel and learn about Indonesia. I find that is amazing. So I have hope for the young and for the future.

Thank you so much for sharing today, it has been very wonderful and very inspiring. Thank you so much for dropping by. Take care. We hope you enjoyed this episode of aNERDspective.

Check out the previous episode on IGTV and our gallery and store if you would like a piece of Indonesia for your home or wardrobe. You may also check out Torajamelo’s website for the latest Torajamelo collection and the Weaving in The Times of Corona art cloths.

Photo credit: Torajamelo, unless stated otherwise.