Towards a Disaster Resilient Stall
Warungs or grocery stores play an important role in providing daily necessities and driving the micro-economy in urban areas. Unfortunately, many shop owners do not yet have an understanding of disaster preparedness that can threaten them and the businesses they run. Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI) through the Sinergi project, funded by USAID, sees the need to increase awareness of the importance of preparedness, especially in having emergency funds and insurance as part of social and economic security in the event of a disaster.
To increase the resilience of shop owners, WVI facilitates ASCA (Accumulating Saving and Credit Association) activities as part of capacity building for disaster risk reduction. This time, WVI is working with SAHARA (Friends of People's Business) which already has assisted stalls.
The collaboration between the two is wrapped in the #WarungTangguhBencana initiative. The initiative is one of the movements from the capacity building section for disaster risk reduction, where geographically, the city of Central Jakarta is an area prone to flooding.
This activity, which has been carried out since November 2021, is specifically for female stall owners, where it is hoped that through ASKA they will have reserve funds for education, children's health, or other needs, in this case, disaster savings.
“We see that warungs are the closest partners to the community, where disasters cannot be predicted when they occur. We hope that the warung will also become one of the frontlines to mitigate disasters. With the help of the Warung Sembako Sahara application, we will provide a menu for disaster reporting menu. Where in the menu it will be connected to the local BPBD so that the nearest stall will be the first place for first aid for disaster-affected communities," said Angga Bakti Kusuma Yunandar (31), developer of the SAHARA network.
The dissemination of this program was well received by residents in 12 urban villages in Central Jakarta, one of them by Pradita (29), as the Head of PKK Mangga Dua Selatan. She said, “This program is very good, especially during a pandemic like this. This is very helpful in the southern mango two areas, where the average economy here is considered to be middle to lower.”
Just like Pradita, Ani (36), a beneficiary of this program, hopes that it will be a provision for her in managing her finances as an entrepreneur.
"Where capital and profit like to mix and there is no special management to manage incoming and outgoing finances," she said.
The next activity of the Warung Tangguh Disaster initiative is training to facilitate ASKA activities for SAHARA facilitators and representatives of stall owner groups.
Written by: Hana Priscilla, M&E Officer of the Synergy Project Wahana Visi Indonesia
