SUPER Papua - Solution for Papuan Women Micro-Entrepreneurs

We develop SUPER Papua (Solution for Papuan Women Micro-Entrepreneurs) to design and implement a business development services ‘center’ concept which coaches, mentors and teaches the required skills to young, indigenous Papuan women to develop and improve their businesses and create employment opportunities for other vulnerable youth.

The Solve community aims to unearth and support innovative solutions to guarantee disadvantaged young people under 24 from low socio-economic backgrounds. In support of this program objective, the SUPER Papua program focuses on sustainable employment creation in Papua through building the business capabilities of women living and working in Papua. Despite being one of the richest regions in Indonesia, around one third of the population in Papua is living below the poverty line. Many of them are indigenous Papuans. With their traditionally low status in society, indigenous women are the most affected by poverty and underdevelopment. 

If the Super Papua Program is successful in designing and implementing a business development services ‘center’ concept, which mentors and teaches the required skills to young, indigenous Papuan women in Jayapura and Raja Ampat, then they will be able to develop and improve their businesses and even create employment opportunities for other vulnerable youth in the same location. 

The project will have an impact on the:

• Economic growth of the Papua and West Papua provinces;
• Improved socio-economic inclusion of disadvantaged young indigenous Papuan women;
• Improved living conditions and future prospects of the target group.

Target Population: Indigenous micro-business women/entrepreneurs in Papua and West Papua provinces aged between 18 and 24 years.

Direct beneficiaries: In the first year of the pilot implementation, 100 (one hundred) selected, micro-business women/entrepreneurs in the urban areas of Jayapura, Nabire and Raja Ampat from five prioritized high-impact/high potential fields of business. They will directly benefit from small business management training, coaching and mentoring.

Output 1.1.: Business management training curriculum for aspiring and existing, young entrepreneurs.

Output 1.2.: Selected youth micro-business women entrepreneurs training classes conducted.

Output 1.3.: Database of 100 selected micro-businesses women. - Outcome 1: Project-participating youth have acquired the relevant business management skills, entrepreneurial spirit and life skills for the successful implementation of their income-generating projects.

Output 2.1.: Improved capacity of ten local trainers and mentors to facilitate business management training.

Output 2.2.: Trainer’s handbook and didactical training materials developed

Output 2.3.: Database of ten trainers and mentors are developed. - Outcome 2: Pool of high-quality trainers and mentors developed who can effectively and independently implement business start-up and improvement training.

Output 3: Knowledge and training materials and other project materials are available publicly. - Outcome 3: Relevant state and non-state actors have access to knowledge and training materials to prepare disadvantaged young people for sel-employment.

The concept of business development services ‘center’ is a structured and systematic capacity building program that teaches young women the technical, business management and soft skills needed to create and operate successful small businesses. Improvement of the target capacity will result in improvement of their business aim to also create employment opportunities for other vulnerable youth. This project, thereby, contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 8: “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive  employment and decent work for all”, particularly 8.1 “Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. 

One of the challenges in this program is the low internet penetration in Papua. This condition prohibits the communication using sophisticated information technology such as video call and conference call. We will ensure that the continuation through mentoring will be created in Papua. Therefore, this intervention will engage larger private sector along the value chain.

Trainers who have been trained in the project may be hired by others. To manage this risk, here is some ideas:

• Work together with existing business and train their people to become trainers and both benefit.

The opportunity for young indigenous Papuan female entrepreneur  will be published and they will be recruited openly. The criteria for selection of the target beneficiaries for this program as poor and vulnerable is youth family economic condition, business capacity, youth with low educational background, and youth with disability. Indicators for target youth poor and vulnerable will be developed and the participants will be assessed using the indicators.  The most vulnerable are often reached via established / supported businesses / entrepreneurs that may not fall in the category of the most vulnerable but that may support the truly poor and vulnerable

Right from the beginning, the project will collect a small training fee from participants. Participants’ contributions will cover main training operation costs such as trainer fees and teaching materials. Training facilities will be made available by department of youth and sport affairs free of charge. A scholarship system will be established to allow especially disadvantaged youth from poor families to participate. Full training cost coverage is planned from the third year onwards, once the local training organisation is established and fully operational. After the pilot, we will evaluate the ability of business training participants to pay a small training fee. 

Papua and West Papua’s economy is relatively unstable; structural discrimination against and stigmatization of indigenous Papuans is widespread; business women and men / companies may be unwilling to support the project. To mitigate that limitation, we will do as follow:

• Thorough market assessments will be carried out.
• Private sector / business actors will be engaged and mobilized early on.
• Job counselling and similar services will be provided to participants. Realistic number of beneficiaries will be targeted.

We expected through our participation in Solve could open opportunity to collaborate among Solver all over the world and sharing best practices and create networking to develop our current work. Furthermore, we believe Solve Community will accelerate our program with various resources, mentorship that provided. 

KAPP – Kamar Adat Pengusaha Papua (Chamber of Commerce of Indigenous Business of Papua): As the largest association in Papua representing Papuan businesses, provide access to the target beneficiaries (micro-business women/entrepreneurs) of Papua and West Papua, facilitate the linkages and coordination of government of Papua and West Papua.

No one.