LOCAL HANDCRAFT FROM ACEH
A story of "OenSekee"
oen sekee project
Sigli, a small town that located 2 hours by driving from Banda Aceh City, is famous for its local handcraft. Weaving production from Pandan Leaves is the biggest potential to innovate new local handcraft. The weaver usually produce floor mats and sell to the local company. Overcoming the difficulties faced by people with disabillties, requires interventions to remove social barriers. People with disabilities are more likely to be unemployed than non-disabled people so they are tend to vulnerable to poverty. Thus, OenSekee Project are trying to bridge local disable people and weaving activity to produce a new thing happen in the town. For the first step, We are trying to empower disable people on making hotel equipments. OenSekee Project goals are to promote the local product with a new product design that they had never made before and try to collaborate with some hotels and suppliers to provide hotel slippers to help the product sustain.
OenSekee Project helps the weavers to increase their income by distributing the products to the partnerships. The outcomes from this project are to boost economic opportunities through innovation of the product and provide sustainable job for local disabled people and to proof that local brand could be much prettier product through handmade process and to raise local wisdom. Currently, we are hiring 10 disabilities focus on production segment and 3 disabilities for marketing. Through a mini grant funding from University of connecticut that hosted for YSEALI Academic Program, OenSekee Project started to help disabilities in the town.