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Attending capacity-building classes felt much like re-living childhood school days for the women of Terong village who are beneficiaries of the International Organization for Migration-Java Reconstruction Fund Livelihood project.

Housewife Warsiti, 39, was happy to return to the classroom again as a participant in IOM training sessions to help her family’s recovery from the devastating impact of the May 27, 2006, earthquake. “We felt like we were going back to school again because, before IOM’s project came to our village, the women here only used to cook, clean up our house or help our husbands in the rice fields every day,” she said.

Warsiti is just one of 100 agriculture and food processing beneficiaries in Terong village, of which 71 are women. For all of them, the classroom sessions in Business Development Training (BDT) and Technical Assistance Training (TA) is more than paying off.

Market demand for their products is growing rapidly. The beneficiaries work in five groups of 20 to produce snackfood products using cheap and locally-grown banana crops, cassava and peanuts, among others. A clever new branding ‘NIKIMON’ – an abbreviation for Javanese expression ‘Niki Mawon’ or ‘Just Pick this Product’ in English – is also helping to create recognition among the public. The groups are now also busily supplying local schools with daily snacks.

Head of one of the five groups, Hamdan, 49, said the prospect for further market growth was bright. “That’s why we are continuously diversifying our product range. Until now, we have created around 12 varieties of snacks,” Hamdan said.

Agriculture and food-processing beneficiaries are among a total of 3000 micro- and small enterprises (MSE) from a wide range of economic sectors which the IOM-JRF Livelihood project is supporting in earthquake-affected Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces. The project is supporting agriculture and food-processing MSE in Terong, Giripurwo and Selopamioro villages to lower operating costs, boost sales, productivity, efficiency, product quality, production capacity and is also imparting business and technical skills. In addition, IOM is helping other sectors including livestock, textiles, organic farming and handicraft to restore pre-earthquake capacity and expand MSE businesses. .

IOM uses an innovative grass-roots approach that provides, on the one hand, direct assistance to individual MSE and, on the other hand, promotes community resilience and sustainability through parallel infrastructure rehabilitation, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and government capacity-building initiatives. Local ownership of the project is enhanced through strategic partnerships with civil-society organisations including the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN) and various non-government organisations such as Bina Swadaya Foundation and the Institute for Study and Improvement of Development Resources (LPPSP).

The project’s impact on the economies of poor communities such as Terong has been substantial. The earthquake not only killed almost 6,000 people, but also ruined thousands of livelihoods. A sense of entrepreneurship is alive in villages where little remained of self-supporting markets in the disaster’s wake. Wagio, a 36-year-old farmer from Terong, said the IOM-JRF Livelihood project had helped locals to become more creative in generating incomes for their families. “I think it’s because of the training in entrepreneurial skills such as financial management, marketing and business plan development,” he said.

Hamdan, the head of one of the beneficiary groups in Terong, said inhabitants of his village were grateful for the IOM-JRF Livelihood project. “We lost everything in the earthquake – homes, livelihoods and those family members who died. It caused a lot of trauma, but slowly and surely we realized that we should get back to rebuilding our lives. Fortunately, the IOM-JRF Livelihood project came to our village and has really helped us to re-build our economic sustainability,” he said.