Lepirona - Social Enterprise

Empowering women and achieving gender equality are not only moral imperatives, they are crucial to creating inclusive, open and prosperous societies. Lepirona is a social enterprise that aims to empower women in Indonesia, especially marginalized women. 

On the other hand, plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues.The high usage of plastic makes Indonesia as the second largest contributor to plastic waste in the world, from food wrappers to plastic straws.

The establishment of Lepirona was initiated by the Founders who concern about environmental issues as well as women empowerment in Indonesia.

Lepirona strives to create business value in ways that are innovative, financially sustainable, scalable and make positive social impact to communities.

Lepirona straw responds to public demand as the awareness to protect the environment through environmentally friendly lifestyle and as an effort to have a social impact for marginalized women on its processing and distribution.

Lepirona is a social enterprise that aims to empower women in Indonesia, especially marginalized women. The name “lepirona” is taken from our initial product, which is an environmentally friendly straw made of lepirona plant which grows mostly in swamp areas in Kalimantan, Indonesia.

With a population totaling around 268 million individuals in 2019, Indonesia is the fourth-largest country with regard to population sizes. It says that more than six million households with children in Indonesia are managed by single mothers. More than half of those numbers live below the poverty line.

Empowering women is important because women are the key to breaking the poverty cycle. Women are more likely to invest their earnings back into their families and children. Mothers are also in general, closer to their children. It means that we are empowering future generations by empowering mothers.

Our project aims at turning the community problem into income generating fortunes. We look at turning waste into eco-friendly products, hence creating jobs and saving environment. We equip unemployed mothers with skills that make them productive and generate income for family. 

According to Ocean Conservancy, disposable plastic straw waste is one of the waste that are often found on the world’s beaches and oceans. In Indonesia, according to the rough assumption data collected by the Divers Clean Action team, the use of disposable straws is estimated at 93,244,847 every day. 

Lepirona straw made of wild grass growing in the swamp areas in Indonesia is an ecological and sustainable alternative to build a sustainable environment and help to maintain balance in nature. It will be fully decomposed on its own in natural condition.

Lepirona articulata is harvested and processed naturally with no chemicals or preservatives, triple washed in salt water and dried in high temperature. It is suitable for warm or cold drinks because it retains its shape in both hot and cold liquid.  Originally the diameter is about two to eight millimetres and the length may vary (customized) according to customer’s requirement.

In a fresh state with room temperature standards, this lepirona straw can last about one week and about two weeks if placed in the refrigerator. Whereas for dried lepirona straws that have been through the drying process in high temperature can last up to six months in the refrigerator.

The establishment of this social enterprise was initiated by three Lepirona’s Founders who concern about environmental issues as well as the empowerment of women in Indonesia. 

Lepirona operates with a small core team from varied backgrounds. This brings together the blend of talent, united by a belief in the women power and the desire to shape a better world for our community.

Lepirona aims to increase positive mental attitude of women in order to strengthen self-reliance and build awareness as well as work ethic of women. We also in the mission to increase life skills of women in order to expand economic opportunities, help women to start income generating activities and enable women to be self-employed.

Mutual learning and knowledge sharing between multi talent women in order to share knowledge and best practices on enterprise development, sustainability, marketing of products and utilization of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). These collaboration efforts will generate a wealth of experiences, inspiring stories, and numerous hopes about women’s entrepreneurship.

Lepirona shall provide employment for marginalized women, solve environmental degradation, support single mothers and their children’s education, and bring family stability as family income increases through economic empowerment. 

The solution is to equip women from low socio-economic backgrounds in rural areas with skills and knowledge. It is expected to generate large-scale employment and improve income earning opportunities in rural areas to address the challenge of migration root causes

Lepirona wants to be a part of empowering women by helping them gain control over their family’s income, resulting in a positive change to escape poverty. Through these changes, we believe that the health and welfare of women and their families will significantly improve.

In the future, it will be developed into some business diversification as the sustainability plan. 

Full-time staff: 3 

Part-time staff: 2

The establishment of this social enterprise was initiated by three Founders:

- Linda Puspita

Majoring in Industrial Product Design and involved with communication matters for a couple of years has given Linda Puspita the opportunity to combine creative powers in thinking with critical understanding of human institutions and values. Linda Puspita engages in several industries from Education, Design, IT & Engineering Consultant, Trading, to Community Development projects in Indonesia, Middle East, China and India

- Agus Subijantoro

With a passion for big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning, Agus Subijantoro is a techno-savvy Consultant who handles all things digital and analytical. He has extensive experience in Network Manager (ENM), working in various Customer Support roles that include System Administrator, Back Office, Customer Network Support, Tier1, Integrator, and Solution Architect.

Agus has experience on and related to Automated Network Operations services of Operation Support System (OSS-RC), Backup Solutions (OMBS), and Network IQ Statistics (ENIQ-S) on GSM, WCDMA, and LTE network, in multi vendors and multi node environment.

Furthermore, he has excellent communication, documentation, team working, and problem-solving skills with international and cross-culture experience being involved in several projects in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, South Korea, Japan, Kuwait and Mexico.

- Audia S. Mirza

Experienced in digital creative industry since 2008, Audia Siti Mirza has worked with clients from different countries and consistently active working on various projects such as web development, graphic designing, and digital illustration. 

She writes design related articles, and promotes many digital products through some design marketplaces.

Lepirona is constantly participating to solve the needs and problems of today’s societies through creative solutions developed in social enterprise based on social and sustainable innovation.

We strive to create business value in ways that are innovative, financially sustainable, scalable and make positive social impact to communities.

Lepirona welcomes collaborations with individuals, companies or other organizations to find innovative solutions, make a social impact and achieve competitive advantage.

We are very happy to collaborate with the surrounding society. We believe in sharing technology, ideas and thinking with our partners for mutual benefit and better outcomes. Through partnerships, we can challenge our approach, complement our own expertise with external knowledge, and deliver improved outcomes. We collaborate with a wide range of partners and we welcome suggestions for new partnerships.

We value and empower all team members and encourage professional growth. We learn from our work and each other.