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