Business sector: fishery

1 (2014)

Serang

economic empowerment of green mussel farmers’ wives in Serang

The members’ income of Ikhtiar Swadaya Mitra (ISM) Sinar Abadi Cooperative, Kota Serang – Banten is very small. The average income of those are IDR 7.000 up to IDR 15.000 per day. Their income is not enough to meet their primary daily needs. Most of their children drop out of school because they cannot afford school fees. Moreover, their husbands’ daily income as fishermen are not reliable because the fishing result are uncertain.  The root cause of the problem above is the community does not have an investment / productive business than as paring mussels. No additional other income which can support the family income. Members only work and receive wages from peeling the mussels. So, if the cooperative has others investment other than peeling the mussels, the economic needs of the members’ families will slowly be helped. Hence, the purpose of this cooperative is to improve the welfare of the members by adding others investment alternatives, one of them are charts with green mussel (bamboo framework designed specifically for the cultivation of mussels) managed by cooperatives. From that kind of investment, cooperative hopes that the amount of green mussel production will increase, members will be rewarded more than before and members can earn revenue from each harvest cycle mussels later.

Ikhtiar Swadaya Mitra (ISM) Sinar Abadi Cooperative is a cooperative of woman whose husband are fishermen, located in Serang, Banten Province where livelihoods of the majority of the village population is farming the green mussels. This cooperative was established by the Green Mussels Community Empowerment Program by Dompet Dhuafa that previously have obtained assistance from them about capacity buildings. It has 36 members of women and each of them has an average income US$ 50 – 70 per month for cleaning green mussel. ISM Sinar Abadi is developing its management ability to manage more green scallop farms so they have assets and extra income. consists of green scallop farmers in Serang, whereas the wives of these farmers are working as green scallop peelers.

Program Ekonomi Dompet Dhuafa (capacity building), Dompet Dhuafa & Karyawan Muslim Citibank Grant (amounted IDR 1 billion) and used a crowd lending from gandengtangan.org for helping fishermen group get working capital.