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Mbatik Manah

Visitor to Indonesia would be hard pressed not to notice, or being enchanted by the country’s most developed and sophisticated art form—batik. Although scholars and historians have different opinions on the origin and the purpose of batik, in modern Indonesia the ubiquitous patterns, designs and colours of these superb textile art works decorate and dress most visual aspects of life.

In Banda Aceh, 20 people, over 15 days, and under the expert guidance of trainer and archaeologist Budhi Setyaning, gathered from the districts of Aceh Barat, Aceh Besar, Aceh Tamiang, Bireun and Pidie Jaya to acquire the ancient skill of creating batik designs. The training was organised and facilitated by FBA and made possible by the LOGICA 2 and AusAid partnerships.

Ibu Budhi was elated and surprised by the enthusiasm and talent of the trainee artisans. She said that the trainees took to the art form with passion and zeal, mastering the finer elegance of the art form very quickly. She was astounded by learning that none of the trainees had ever tried their hand at batik prior to joining the workshops.

Creating batik fabric is a time consuming and intricate art form, which requires the obvious creativity, but also the mastering of some essential tools and materials. The tools may appear very simple. The canting is a small thin wall spouted copper container connected to a short bamboo handle. The copper container is filled with melted wax that the artisan uses to painstakingly draw the designs on the cloth.

The wajan is the container that holds the melted wax. It looks like a small wok. Normally it is made of iron or earthenware. The wajan is placed on a stove to keep the wax melted and to allow the artisan to scoop it into the canting. Wax and dyes used for batik can be natural or manufactured, and while the traditional dyes consisted primarily of beige, blue, brown and black, nowadays most colours are combined to produce kaleidoscopic patterns.  A more recent addition to the tools used to create batik is the cap—a precise copper stamp wrought to produce consistent and exact patterns of design on larger works and fabrics.

The infectious enthusiasm of the trainee artisans was not limited to the newly acquired skills and the camaraderie and friendship they established with each other, after two weeks of training and living under the same roof. They envisaged, optimistically, new windows of opportunities to establish small enterprises in their villages.

According to the trainees, in none of the villages they come from there is any form of batik production or design. This creates a unique opportunity for them to establish a niche as batik makers, and importantly, allowing them to seize on the prospect of generating much needed income to supplement the family budget to meet housing, education and health costs.

It was believed that batik was an art form originally reserved for Javanese royalty. Certainly, the exquisite elegance of batik would lean that way, to have us believe that the patterns were reserved to be worn only by royalty from the Sultan's palaces. Nonetheless, Ibu Budhi clearly demonstrated that anyone keen to dedicate themselves to the fine art of batik can master the craft, bringing it to the people, and in the process, create self-employment opportunities.

Samples of the first and original creations by the trainee artisans can be viewed at the coming Aceh Fair from the 8 – 15 of May, thereafter at the FBA office in Emperom.

The pungent smell of optimism

In the village of Meunasah Raya, Manasarea, an alert olfactory organ will be able to detect a new pungent smell that wasn’t there until a month ago. From the front yard of one of the rumoh panggung (traditional Acehnese house), a working party of women is busy fermenting daily supply of tofu, tempeh, and a variety of soy bi-products.

The enterprise has been set up under the auspices of the LOGICA 2 initiative, and facilitated by FBA micro credit program. The participants are all members of the local KSM (self-help group), some of whom undertook an initial four day training in soy bean processing, before exploring viable alternatives to  enter their product in the local market. Remarkably, the enterprise comprises of a total of twenty women, all adequately equipped with the skills to produce tofu and tempeh, however, only three of them did attend the training, the rest of the group acquired the necessary skills from the first three trainees.

Norliana, one of the KSM members, demonstrated the tofu-making process. Tofu is made by coagulating soy milk. Only a few pieces of equipment are needed to make tofu; a tofu mould, which is basically a plastic container with holes, several vessels to transfer the product in the coagulating stages and a cooker.

The ingredients to make tofu can be purchased at the local markets, as for the time being, Norliana explained, there are no plans to grow soy bean in the Pidie Jaya District. The process involves curdling the soy milk by boiling it and then cooling it down.  A coagulant solution is slowly diluted into the hot soy milk, while gently stirring the soy milk and allowing the mixture to stand for a while. The tofu is formed once all soy milk is separated into small white curds of tofu and an amber liquid. This is then transferred into a mould lined with cloth, which is allowed to sit for enough time for the coagulating liquid to turn into a block. Empting and cutting the block produces a delicious marketable product with no additives or preservatives.

The sale of tofu and tempeh in the local market allows Norliana and the members of the group to significantly boost the families’ budget. Prior to setting up this enterprise, the women could only weave floor mats for a meagre income, while the men were in the fields. For the moment the KSM group is happy to trail different ways of making tofu only for the local market, but Norliana’s resolve is to establish a viable business for the long term, optimistically seeing the tofu from Manasarea making it all the way to the shelves of Pante Pirak.

From trash to fuel in one day

Conventional wisdom would tell you that time spent in front of the TV is mostly wasted. Or is it? The 30 members of the Aceh Tengah KSM group owe their business enterprise idea to Marsinem, who happen to spot on the box an alternative cooking and heating fuel made from dry organic waste.

Marsinem enquired with FBA about the possibility of learning the skills to make briquettes in her local area. FBA responded, through its micro credit program, by engaging a trainer from Bandung, who travelled to Aceh to impart the basic skills the women needed, and, as they say, the rest is history.

Fuel briquettes are made from agricultural and commercial residues such as weeds, leaves, rice husks and other organic waste. The basic process involves collecting the materials, pounding or grinding them to a certain consistency, mixing the materials, allowing them to sit for a period of time, pressing the mash into a fuel briquette using a specially designed press, allowing the briquettes to dry and finally burning the fuel briquettes exactly as one would burn firewood or charcoal.

Marsinem is not completely satisfied with the consistency and efficiency of the product her group has come up with. For this reason the women continue to work as one single team. However, once a consistent product is arrived at, the women plan to produce it individually, in their own homes, but still work as a single group for marketing it and developing it further