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International Development Digest 2011
| International Digest 2011 |
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For Marlina, it's a dream come true. Her daughter, Naura Nazifa, is attending Sumatera Utara University in Medan, the provincial capital of Sumatra. Closer to home, in Banda Aceh, Naura's elder sister, Shahnaz Nadira, will graduate from Syiah Kuala University and begin teaching biology next year.
Divorced in 1993, Marlina has struggled on her own to make ends meet for her father and two daughters. For years, she as been pounding melinjo nuts flat into emping chips, a local snack, hoping she would one day bring financial security to her family. She's hired others to help make ends meet, but when the price of Melinjo is high, labour costs also rise. The price she received from the middleman who bought her chips was barely enough to put food on her table and clothe her family.
Marlina lives in a coastal community in eastern Aceh, on the northern tip of Indonesia. It's a region still adjusting to peacetime following decades of bloody civil war. The fighting ended in 2005, in the wake of the Asian tsunami. Though fear and poverty are a lingering legacy, a sense of optimism that times will get better is gradually taking root here. If the efforts of government leaders and community groups prevail, Marlina's village may one day become'the pearl' foretold in its Acehnese name, Mutiara.
In 2008, an opportunity indeed arose for Marlina. She was invited to join a co‑operative of fellow emping
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producers from the area. Community organizers explained how the co‑op would buy her chips and sell them at a higher price on her behalf. Marlina
could see with her own eyes how much better off members of the Hareukat Poma Co‑operative were with this new arrangement. The co‑op not only gave members better prices for their chips, it lifted the burden of marketing from their shoulders. It was just one of several co‑ops that the Canadian Co‑operative Association has helped to establish for fishers, rice farmers, handicraft, and emping producers in Aceh.
Marlina joined the co‑op and before long her income began to rise. As she gained experience volunteering with the co‑op, her talent for leadership became apparent.
"Now that I am part of the co‑op, part of a group, I feel more confident about myself," says Marlina. "I know I can produce more emping and the co‑op will market it for me. The price used to be based on the middleman, now we have more bargaining power and we can decide the price."
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| Watch Marlina make emping chips |
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