Waste Bank Cooperative of PerMaTa South Sulawesi - An association of persons affected by leprosy
PerMaTa is an organisation of people affected by leprosy with three branches in Indonesia. Our South Sulawesi branch is the most active one with a lot of attention to younger generations because young people will change the negative image of leprosy. Our cooperative will be registered province-wide (province South Sulawesi) but we start it in the district Gowa. We, the PerMaTa Gowa youth group, have been working together as a team in several successful projects already.
The core of our cooperative will be waste recycling. The idea for this arose in light of the garbage lying around everywhere. Our business model is based on the concept of the "Waste Banks", which is already practiced in several parts of Indonesia, but not in our region. We will set up 4 collection points and hopefully add more later.
First we will conduct environmental health education in communities to increase knowledge and awareness about proper waste disposal. At the same time, we present the waste bank and the advantages for its users: customers drop off their household waste at our collection points and are paid according to the type and amount of waste. Every customer has a personal waste savings book in which every deposit is recorded. Customers are paid once a month, which not only facilitates transparency and monitoring, but also encourages savings.
We separate and clean the collected waste, and sell the quality-improved products to existing recycling factories in South Sulawesi and Java.
In the first year, we will focus on getting the collection points up and running with enough customers. When we have earned the necessary start-up capital, we will start recycling and upcycling. Our goal is to produce quality goods that we can sell with good value for money. Our strategy is to create different business units in our cooperative that focuses on developing and manufacturing different products. Examples are plastic bricks (Ecobricks), brooms, sandals, bags, handicrafts and organic fertilizer. Products are sold in markets and through stores, as well as on social media. All of our members can participate in social media marketing and sales.
Watch this video to meet the members and learn more about their cooperative project:
Additional support needed
We still need guidance and support in
- Bookkeeping and finances.
- Marketing
- Developing innovative ideas
- Further strengthening of our team to become confident, strong young team members
We hope a mentor will speak Indonesian because none of us can speak English. However, we can also organize an interpreter.
We hope for a mentor who can adapt to our low formal level of education. We make up for our low education with energy and hard work!