In Keerom, farmers grows areca nut but it is hard to sell it.
In Wamena, people love to chew it, but there's no areca nut.
In this situation, we saw a chance to link mama-mama (Papuan women) in Keerom, who have areca nut trees,
with mama-mama who sell these on the streets in Wamena.
Let's us Sell Areca Nut
We buy it from the Butonese merchants.
But we don't make any profit.
How much are these pinang (areca nuts)? 5,000 (rupiah).
Sometimes I buy it from the Butonese. I get one kilogram for 70,000 (rupiah).
But for the past several days, it was for 65,000 (rupiah).
After I buy it, I display it here from morning until night.
At night up until 8 or 9PM.
Sometimes if these nuts aren't sold, I bring them back home.
They sell pinang in the small stores too, so it's hard to compete.
In that store, they sell kerosene, cooking oil and other stuff as well.
So we mama-mama (Papuan women), what can we do?
We're not into starting a conflict with them. No!
But how do we empower the Papuan women?
If they don't have enough money to begin with, we help them to get it.
They can potentially become agents (distributors) for buying
Mama-mama who have areca nut trees can also potentially become agents for gathering (the nuts).
Itâs a positive competition
We faced obstacles but the Father from YTHP opened a business for us.
He is very kind. His efforts have opened doors for us.
So we think this (business) could make our lives better and happier.
Yayasan Teratai Hati Papua (Teratai Hati Papua Foundation) helps us now.
This help enables us.
We can sell pinang but it's not like before.
YTHP helps us to buy two kilograms of pinang.
We can buy three kilograms. It depends on us, but if we want to buy more than two kilograms, we need to pay for it ourselves
So, the price of areca nut can increase, but it is not a problem if it goes up or down
We've set our price. Fixed.
We take one kilogram. If we sell it all, we get 140,000, 150,000 rupiah.
From that we can give 70,000 rupiah back.
So we are asking the government, please take care of us.
Papuan women can only sell small items
Don't give permission to the big merchants (to sell pinang).
They should only permit the big merchants to sell goods other than pinang
Don't put small tables outside the store and sell onions, pinang. Give that chance to the Papuan women
The Papuan women should sell these, and not the stores
Take pity on them