Increase the Family Income by Doing Agriculture

Asmat Hope - Asmat Regency has a unique and exotic wood carving that makes UNESCO recognize it as a world heritage in 2011. This has made the Asmat Regency become more famous. But unfortunately, this has not been able to trigger the community to improve the welfare of a decent life.

To meet their daily needs, people still go to the forest to collect sago, hunt for meat and catch fish in the river. The habit of farming, raising livestock is still very rarely done. This causes the availability of food at home to be limited, especially if the hurricane season arrives.

Through the Asmat HOPE program of Wahana Visi Indonesia, in order to increase food access, the community is invited to plant, starting with planting various vegetables.

Through this program, Regina (14) a child in Asmat Regency was introduced from the beginning to grow vegetables. Regina was immediately taught to make raised beds because this was one of the requirements to get seeds.

At first, Regina did not understand how to grow vegetables, so she poured all the vegetable seeds in one place. But after more teaching was given by the Asmat HOPE team, Regina is now good at growing vegetables such as kangkung, mustard greens and long beans in her garden.

She said the results of these plants are eaten and sold. She sold the proceeds from the sale of vegetables to be sent to her sister who are still studying in Jayapura.

Now the Asmat people understand how to grow crops. However, they only understood how to make roasted sago. For that, they still need to know the best way to process good and healthy food. In order to achieve this goal, the Asmat people need cooking utensils that they can use in their daily life.

Written by: Mian Panjaitan, Asmat HOPE Project Manager Wahana Visi Indonesia