Blessing in Disguise: When the End of Her Business Brought Her to Communities She Loved
Spending most of her time travelling to see our members, what did Saki learn from them?
How she chose to devote her time to serve communities
“When you take Public Health as your major in university, you got in touch a lot with communities. That was what I did back in my university days, doing research about public health issues with people who live in rural area,” Saki reminisced.
Few years ago, Saki’s friend and she went to an area near Bogor, West Java, where they did a research about diarrhea. She thought to herself that it might be the same thing that caused the disease, that people didn’t have proper knowledge about how to clean their hands. What else would it be?
As they did a more comprehensive observation, they were shook that it was not as simple as people’s lack of knowledge of how to properly wash their hands. It was more than that. People who live there didn’t even have proper access to toilets, they didn’t have access to sanitation facilities.
“That was the moment when I thought that what I did was not enough. I’ve been doing research and educating people about how to wash hands. But if the main cause was the lack of sanitation facilities, you can spend thousands of hours educating people, but the issue won’t be resolved,” Saki said.
That moment brought her to the realization that before receiving any kind of learning material about how to properly clean themselves, the people needed to increase their welfare to be able to access better sanitation facilities. That was what sparked Saki’s interest in learning to be an entrepreneur, to see whether they could do business that could help the people they were in touch with.
“It was kind of funny that as a graduate in Public Health Studies, I don’t work in that field. But as I said before, why would I keep educating them when it was not the root cause? So I decided to pursue business. I like the idea of using the profit of my business to help them in getting what they need.”
As someone who was new in business, she faced lots of adversities that forced her to freeze the business for a while. However, being a person who has strong desire in contributing in the betterment of other people’s lives, Saki was intrigued when she was told there was a social startup who were looking for passionate people in bringing positive impact in people’s lives and took the chance to get to know what that startup was and it turned out to be Mapan.
When interacting with our members taught her a lot of life lessons
As the Agent Capability Planning Manager who worked closely with the people Mapan served, Saki had tons of experience in interacting with those who were benefited from Mapan’s products. With the vast experience she had in working closely with communities, she had seen firsthand how it was beneficial not only for the business, but also to the members of the communities themselves.
“There was this one woman, of course member of Mapan, who had to lose her job because she was asked to marry her current husband and had to move to other city. She then joined Arisan Mapan because of her unemployment. Long story short, after joining Arisan Mapan, she was able to earn income from it when she had no formal job. She was able to create her own online shop and people would actually buy from her, especially other members who are also members of Arisan Mapan.”
It surely brought tears to Saki’s eyes when she talked to the members of Mapan. She met a lot of people with different stories. Another story she remembered well was about one member of Arisan Mapan who experienced miscarriage. Being blamed for what happened and getting stressed because of it, she found a group of people who accepted her and supported her in the misfortune she faced.
She was amazed by how strong and supportive this group of women could be. It was a group full of acceptance and no judgment. And that was what kept her hooked in her work, to be able to listen and learn from those people she served.
“I am amazed by how loyal these women can be to the communities. At first, I wondered what kept them doing what they did with us. It turned out that they by joining Mapan and getting involved in this circle, it not only helped them financially, but also provided them with the support system that they might not get from other places. The one that supported their growth,” Saki said.
Learn to be independent, accept one another without judgment, empower one another to be better. There were a lot Saki learned from the communities she worked with.
Did the high demand for constant traveling discourage her from doing her work?
“No, I am thankful. I am thankful that I got the chance to see with my own eyes how strong these women are. I used to feel that I was unfortunate that my business got shut down. But it turned out that there are people who experience worse things than me. So meeting them is a form of healing for me, to know that my work have an impact on their lives. That is what keeps me hooked with my work.”
Mapan is a tech company with a mission to increase access, dignity and income to low income community with the help of technology. Having helped more than 2,3 million of Indonesians with our product, we’re still looking for more people who are willing to use their knowledge and skills to build meaningful products with us.
Interested in knowing more of how you could do that? Send us your updated CV to recruitment@ruma.co.id!
