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Women produce tortilla chips to lift themselves out of poverty
Andi Dora and her nine friends from Kabelota, a small enterprise in Lere subdistrict, West Palu, have been busy meeting orders of tortilla chips from a number of places
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ndi Dora and her nine friends from Kabelota, a small enterprise in Lere subdistrict, West Palu, have been busy meeting orders of tortilla chips from a number of places.
'A person from the Central Sulawesi's Public Works Agency just came here by chance and tasted our tortillas. He eventually ordered 10,000 packets of corn tortilla,' said Dora recently.
The 42-year-old woman said her group also sold tortilla, made from from moringa, corn and cassava as a binding agent, to other government agencies.
Similarly, Nirsam, 27, said she and her colleagues from the Manonda Indah small enterprise in Kamonji subdistrict, West Palu, had also produced tortillas and sold them to government officers as well as schools.
Nirsam said her group produced tortilla from purple yam and corn with various options, such as hot, sweet and chocolate, all without using taste enhancers and preservatives, so they were safe to consume.
She added that her group was able to produce 5,000 packs of purple yam tortilla with a variety of flavors at Rp 10,000 (75 US cents) per pack for a number of government institutions in Palu.
Nirsam and Dora are among more than 100 women who have joined training sessions on producing tortilla organized recently by the Palu municipality, a program aimed to alleviate poverty.
Palu Deputy Mayor Andi Mulhanan Tombolotutu told The Jakarta Post that in an effort to reduce poverty in the city, the municipality had initiated three activities from its Zero Poverty program: labor-intensive activities, community empowerment and regional business credit programs.
Mulhanan said the municipality was working with Palu's Tadulako University Center for Business Incubation and Small Enterprises (Pinbuk) and the Institute for the Development of Applied Technology in Masamba, North Luwu regency, South Sulawesi, to provide training to women to make tortillas.
Palu Community Empowerment Agency head Sudaryano Lamangkona explained that his agency had enrolled 10 female representatives from every subdistrict in the city to produce and sell tortilla and train other residents.
In the initial stage, Sudaryano pointed out that 85 people had been trained and had returned to Palu, while 108 others were still undergoing training.
'Currently, 85 people have produced and sold tortilla,' said Sudaryano.
