“I don’t want to be a labourer forever. I want to be a boss”

Restiana, 42 years old, is a leader of a homeworkers’ group in Mojokerto, East Java Province of Indonesia, with a strong determination to improve the lives of women homeworkers like her. She has been working as a homeworker, known as a putting-out system worker, who produce shoes upon orders from the local supplier.

While she has been able to receive many orders during peak seasons, the work has been irregular and she used to struggle from having no income during off-peak seasons when there was no order. However, her life has improved since 2014 as she gained alternative sources of income.

One day in 2014, she was invited to a training for soap making organized by Mitra Wanita Pekerja Rumahan Indonesia (MWPRI), an implementing partner of the ILO-MAMPU Project which works to promote decent work for homeworkers with support from the Government of Australia. She learned how to make soap, and how women like her can work together with other women in similar situations to make soap for sale. After the training, she taught other women homeworkers how to make soap, and she and fellow homeworkers started working together as a group to produce soap for sale.

The soap has been selling well so far, and she and her fellow homeworkers are very happy with the income it brings during the off-peak season for shoe making. Recognizing the potential for the increased sales of soap, the group is now in the process of getting a license number for their product from a local authority.

Before joining the training, she did not understand about organizing and working in groups. However, she now is a strong believer of organizing and working together in a group where they can share their experience, make friends, and help each other to improve their livelihoods. As a leader of the group, she recognizes that working as a group has many challenges including the mobilization of members. Some members do not get permission from their family members to join the regular group meetings, and some members are skeptical about the group as they do not understand about the benefits of organizing and working together. Sometimes she is overwhelmed by the challenges.

However, in those times, she reminds herself of the objective of improving the livelihood of fellow homeworkers to keep her going, as she knows that they need additional sources of income when there’s no order from the supplier.

Before joining the training, she did not understand about organizing and working in groups. However, she now is a strong believer of organizing and working together in a group where they can share their experience, make friends, and help each other to improve their livelihoods.

Getting a hint from soap making, she and her group members also started making herbal juice for sale. The group members worked together on the recipes for two types of herbal juice and they are selling quite well. The group is now working to improve the packaging to make their products more attractive to customers.

While she continues to work as a putting-out system worker when she receives orders, she expressed that she does not want to work as a labourer forever, and has a dream of running her own business in the future, so that she can provide jobs to those in need of jobs, especially women.