Instellar Beyond Java: Empowering Women with MALA Ecotours

International Women’s Day is celebrated every March 8th throughout the world. It was inaugurated as an annual celebration by the United Nations in 1977 to celebrate all the achievements achieved by women in various fields, such as social, economic and cultural.

As a form of support towards women’s empowerment, Instellar cooperates with MALA Ecotours and creates programs for business people, especially women, who have been negatively affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The program is part of the “MSME Recovery Program from COVID-19”, and was funded by Ireland Facebook.

MALA Ecotours is a company that provides tour services for domestic and overseas travels, based in Alor, East Nusa Tenggara. Since the pandemic, this company has experienced a significant drop in tourists. For this reason, Mala Ecotours changed its business direction by trying to support the local community business ecosystem from upstream to downstream. Instellar helped MALA Ecotours perfect their new business model by building a market strategy as well as a logistics and delivery strategy.

Aligned with Instellar’s plan to help more impact entrepreneurs outside of Java, MALA Ecotours agreed to collaborate with Instellar to produce various programs that could provide support mechanisms that can be easily accessed by local businesses.

The programs that provided by Instellar and MALA Ecotours were ranging from business training, consulting, to field assistance. Not only that, Instellar also held a “Business Group Exhibition” webinar, which was attended by Mr. Dathenus Moleda Bani from the Alor Regency Industry Office, Mrs. Nurhayati Ali from Koperasi Kuliner Lewalu Jaya, Mrs. Reverend Yumince Pinat from UMKM Kube Pubila, and Melissa Augustina from MALA Ecotours.

In the event, the local business women showcased the products they have developed while sharing stories about the challenges they are facing. They also explained that in the MSME program, the community was equipped with knowledge about digital marketing so they could develop their business beyond their region.

The result of this collaboration between Instellar and MALA Ecotours has had many real impacts. For example, the collaboration that was established with Kube Pubila in the management of products made from candlenut and roasted cashew nuts, the increase in the number of sales experienced by Koperasi Perempuan in Lewalu, and the empowerment of women on the coast to establish legal entities, such as Koperasi. The women in this program were also trained to procure cashew nut peeling machines to produce granola.

The program didn’t stop there, MALA Ecotours also invited women who were at shelters for victims of Domestic Violence (KDRT) to become producers of cold pressed candlenut products. As a result, their products are being looked at by the Department of Industry and Trade. Finally, MALA Ecotours also cooperates with Koperasi Tenun Gunung Mako to develop woven products and home decorations.

The fact that these programs prove to give real impact, both in terms of business and social, encourages us to continue supporting social enterprises to develop their business and impact. We also hope to get support from various parties so as to empower the women all along the coastlines to be economically independent and to build business ecosystem outside of Java.