GRAISEA: Empowering Women and Families in the Aquaculture Industry

OXFAM

OXFAM is a non profit organization who is fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice. Instellar works with them to bring change for gender equality through GRAISEA projects. 

Until this day, we still find several women subordination cases and women’s interests mostly get less attention. In this regard, GRAISEA operates as an endeavor to reform existing economic models so that women’s labor, whether paid or unpaid, may be recognized. Through Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE), they also seek to promote women’s rights and voices in the workplace.

GRAISEA itself is a gender-transformative business investment program by OXFAM that aims to improve the livelihoods of small-scale producers and their families in the aquaculture industry. This program is run in five countries with different focuses, with the shrimp supply chain as the main focus in Indonesia.

To make it happen, Instellar facilitates five social enterprises to join the GRAISEA program, consisting of: 

  1. JALA Tech: a technology-based company that provides integrated digital solutions to help shrimp farmers to avoid various risks of aquaculture failure and increase productivity.

Period: June 2021 – December 2021

Agendas to Implement Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE):

Through workshop & self-assessment, they agreed to improve access to capital, not only from the business side, but also from the gender aspect, and policymaking that is determined by employee aspirations.

Results:

  • Before GRAISEA: JALA only included an assessment related to cultivation productivity in determining the criteria for farmers to help them gain access to capital
  • After GRAISEA: JALA felt it was necessary to include gender-related policies as one of their assessment criteria. There are some improvements in their internal policy regarding gender equality.

 

2. KWN Fatimah Az-Zahra: an organization with the purpose to empower and assist fishermen’s wives in dealing with complex social issues, such as domestic and sexual abuse.

Period: July 2021 – December 2021

Agendas to Implement Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE):

Through workshop & self-assessment, they agreed to improve women’s leadership-skill and technical skills (financial management and development of market-oriented production).

Results:

Leadership Capacity

  • KWN Fatimah Az-Zahra encourages its members to take advantage of opportunities to strengthen their leadership abilities. There are Bu Marwah, Bu Suryani, dan Hilda.
  • Bu Marwah

She took on the challenge to promote her own KWN Fatimah products at the mayor’s office and earned sales of 2.1 million rupiahs.

  • Bu Suryani

She was challenged to promote her KWN Fatimah products. Previously, she only focused on production activities.

  • Bu Hilda

She was challenged to deliver orders to consumers, although currently there are still many obstacles in the delivery process. Previously, she only assisted on production activities.

  • Market-Oriented Product Development
  • Marketing workshop
  • Focus on beneficial products       
  • Good governance in their organisation. KWN has three main activities such as business, coop and social work. We ask the member to select a leader for each activity, divide the budget and the control so the activities can support each other sustainably and not become a burden to each other.

3. Pictafish: an end-to-end shrimp pond consultant that uses technology and data to increase quality pond management.

Period: September 2021 – December 2021

Agendas to Implement Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE):

Through workshop and self-assessment, they are eager to:

  • Understand Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)
  • Map Pictafish’s long-term vision related to gender aspects
  • Do self-assessment 

4. Mina Ceria: a cultivation-based service that is ready to assist shrimp and fish farming business owners by providing complete aquaculture services.

Period: November 2021 – now (ongoing)

Agendas to Implement Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE):

Through workshop and self-assessment, they agreed to improve production and processing quality, and market-oriented production development.

Progress:

Mina Ceria is willing to implement Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) in the following ways:

  • To collaborate with other organizations to increase the production and development of fishery products,

To incorporate gender-related policies in the organizations, such as maternity leave, menstrual leave, and women’s representation in management.

5. Fistx: a startup that provides aquaculture solutions by developing products in response to the demands and difficulties of aquaculture players.

Period: December 2021 – now (ongoing)

Instellar is here to support GRAISEA in project management and as a consultant for social enterprise in the aspects of:

  • Business Models: Social Enterprise will understand their business process, stakeholders, capacities, values, and much more
  • Entry Market Strategies: Social Enterprise will understand their competitor and customer, also pricing strategy and marketing planning
  • Business Development Plan: Social Enterprise ready to do market strategy

“Through GRAISEA, Instellar and other social enterprises are both learning about Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) with various approaches, such as self-assessment, gender analysis, and GALS. We learned that the ideal concept of Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) should be uniquely adapted based on the social enterprise’s condition, vision, and values.

We hope that women and men have an equal level of productivity and build a work environment that has a transformative gender perspective.”