In Keerom, farmers grow areca nuts, (pinang) but it is hard to sell them.
In Wamena, people love to chew pinang, but do not grow the trees.
Given this situation, we saw a chance to link mama-mama (Papuan women)
in Keerom who have pinang trees
with mama-mama who sell them on the streets in Wamena.
Let's Sell Pinang
We can buy them from the Butonese merchants
but we don't make any profit.
How much are these pinang?
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 them, I display them 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 too.
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 pinang trees could also potentially become distributors.
It is 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) assists us now.
Their 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 must pay for it ourselves.
So, the price of pinang can increase, but it's not a problem if it goes up or down.
We've set our price. It's 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 items and not the stores.
Take pity on them.