STORY PREVIEW

2021

Nature's Gift to Us (Dari Alam Untuk Kita)

Kecamatan Bener

Jawa Tengah

MENTOR

Risa Indriyanti

Step 1 FEEL

List the challenges or problems in your surroundings (school,neighbourhood etc.) that bothered you.

- Lack of awareness about rainforest and forest resources, especially in the city - Most villagers only sell raw resources from the forest - No skill or knowledge to develop products using local resources

State the problem chosen to work and why.

We live in a village called Kamijoro in Purworejo, Central Java. Kamijoro is a village surrounded by mountains and pristine forest. Our village has a lot of natural resources, like trees, coffee, spices, fruits. However, most of the time the villagers only sell the raw resources. If the resources are made into some kind of products, it will give the villagers better income. Based on our survey, they actually wanted to further process the resources but they don’t have the skill or knowledge. At the same time, we see that many people, especially in the cities, who lack the awareness and knowledge about forest resources or care about our forest in general. So we try to tackle both of these problems.

Who were the people affected by the problem? What were their primary concerns?

People in Kamijoro village. They want to make something out of forest resources to increase their income, but don’t have the skill or knowledge to do so. We also see many villages with forest have problems with deforestation which causes landslide, flood, etc. So we want to minimize the impact by protecting our forest.

Step 2 IMAGINE

List ALL the different solutions you came up with.

1. Educating villagers to better manage forest resources 2. Educating villagers about product innovation and entrepreneurship 3. Making a product using natural resources found in the forest village without exploiting it 4. Collaborating with farmer cooperatives and local government to develop micro and small business in our village 5. Learning from other villages who have succeeded in product innovation using local natural resources

Which solution from those listed above did you choose to implement and why?

We create a product which utilizes the natural resources of our village. We consider making food products, handicrafts, and skincare products. After brainstorming, we decided to make natural soap, because the ingredients are easy to get, and relatively easy to make. Through this solution, we aim to increase household income in our village as well as sale value of resources from our village, while at the same time creating awareness and educating people in Indonesia about the importance of forest and resources we can harvest from our forest.

Step 3DO

Describe very briefly the process of implementing your solution(s).

1. We make natural soaps from resources found in the village forest. For start by making soap from coconut oil and coffee which are abundant in our village. 2. We create a brand for our soap, called “E Nosso”, which means “ours” in Portuguese. We chose the name because we want to utilize, not exploit, the natural resources in our village forest for everyone’s benefit. 3. We sell the soap both locally and online, so everyone all over Indonesia can buy them. 4. To give back to the forest, we use part of the revenue from the soap to plant more trees in Kamijoro.

What was the result or impact of your project?

1. We succeeded in making a product utilizing natural resources from the village forest 2. Villagers now can get extra income by making soap 3. We learned a lot about product innovation and entrepreneurship 4. More awareness about rainforest and forest resources

How many people were impacted by your solution(s)?

1000

What did the impacted people have to say about your project? Provide 2 quotes or testimonials:

“This innovation gave us knowledge about how to utilize our local resources better. Especially now that we are in a pandemics and a lot of people are affected, entrepreneurship is really important.” (Farmer in Kamijoro village) “The soap is of good quality. I love that it is 100% natural and made from local resources. I wasn’t aware that forest gave us many kind of resources so this was new for me.” (E Nosso Customer)

What challenges did you encounter while implementing your project, and how did you overcome them?

1. It turns out that making natural soap was not as easy as we had thought. Our first experiment was a total failure. But we finally succeeded after experimenting a couple more times. We check the quality of the soap and make sure that they are safe for daily use. 2. Due to the pandemics restriction we are not able to share our knowledge of soap-making with many villagers yet. Hopefully once the restriction is eased we can organize soap-making workshop in our village.

How long did it take to implement your solution?

MORE THAN 30 DAYS

Which global goals does your story align with?

Life on land

Please explain briefly why do you think so?

Through our DFC project we hope to take part in achieving SDG goal #15, especially in terms of sustainably managing forest, protecting, restoring and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystem and protecting biodiversity in our forest.

Step 4 SHARE

How did you share your project with your school and community? Who did you share your project with? What was their response?

We created an instagram account (@enosso.indonesia) where we share stories about our DFC project. We also shared information about forest resources to increase awareness and knowledge about our forest. Within one week we got more than 200 followers. We talked to our friends and some of them got inspired and interested in doing their own DFC project. We participated in DFC Exchange Program organized by DFC Kenya, where we shared our story to 28 students from Kenya and 5 students form Israel. They were impressed that we didn’t give up despite failing in our first attempt and that we kept experimenting until we succeeded in making soaps which met safety and quality standards. We also participated in virtual DFC BTC meeting where we shared our story with students from Zambia, Madagascar, UAE, Bhutan, Singapore, and India.

Approximately how many people did you share your story of change with?

More than 100

Briefly share your plan to sustain the impact of your project?

Once covid restrictions have been eased, we are planning to organize soapmaking workshop for villagers in Kamijoro so they can also benefit from e Nosso. We also plan to register e Nosso as a formal SME so it can create sustainable income for the villager and increase value for our forest resources.

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