For these six creative and inspiring social enterprises, lying back while expecting funding from donors is so last-decade.

“Do what you can, start now and do it for others” seems to be the sacred slogan for six winners of the Social Enterprise Awards for Arts, Creative Economy and Tourism, which were presented by DIAGEO and the British Council in Jakarta recently.

The winners were Perkumpulan Padmasana, House of Natural Fiber Foundation and the C20 Library and Collabtive, which were granted Rp 50 million (US$3,748) each in funding, as well as Toraja Melo, Bandung Creative City Forum (BCCF) and RuangRupa, which were awarded with a special trip to the UK to study and see for themselves the experience of relevant organizations.

The extraordinary people behind those organizations have been working hard and independently, doing creative business in order to help their initiatives survive.

Among the inspiring individuals, for example, is Rakhmat Hadi, the founder of Perkumpulan Padmasana (Padmasana Association), who helps in preserving the ancient Muarajambi Buddhist temple complex by empowering his fellow villagers in Muarajambi village of Muarajambi regency, Jambi province, in a sustainable manner.

Padmasana is a Sanskrit term for a structural foundation of a lotus-shaped stone statue, which is commonly found in Muarajambi temple sites. Padmasana is a fusion of the Muarajambi village-based Saramuja, Dwarapalamuja and Macro Film International organizations.

Taking the Muarajambi compound — one of the largest and best-preserved ancient complexes in Southeast Asia — as the magnet, Rakhmat started it all by establishing a non-formal school named Sekolah Alam Raya (Great Nature School), offering historical lessons about the temple complex to young Muarajambi villagers.

“The initiative [of educating local youngsters about the ancient complex] took place in 2007. At that time, I thought what a shame it was that many of the youngsters in my village knew nothing about Muarajambi temple — simply because it is not in the school curriculum,”Rakhmat told the press on the sidelines of the awards ceremony.

Modern look: A modern art installation in the form of a supercomputer, one of three parts of the 2012 Micronation/Macronation project, which processes data on weather and seasons.(Courtesy of House of Natural Fiber)

“I knew that the temple complex was an education center back in ancient times. So, why didn’t I do the same thing — make the temple a place to study history again?” said Rakhmat, adding that the Padmasana Association was formed in 2011.

From the non-formal school, Rakhmat thought harder on how to meet the association’s needs in promoting its social mission. Rakhmat then started offering packages for tourists to visit the temple site.

“It’s a pilgrimage tour, especially for Buddhists, to the Muarajambi temple complex. However, we also offer a similar package to non-Buddhists,” said Rakhmat, adding that the tour package also involved local villagers through providing homestays, food and rental bicycles for visitors.

Besides the non-formal school and the tour packages, the association takes orders for documentation services.

“We’ve been taking jobs from the tourism agency of the local administration in providing them with documentation videos and photos of tourism spots in the province,” said Rakhmat.

On winning the grant, Rakhmat said that Padmasana would use it to build a cultural house as a place to learn about the Muarajambi temple as well as the village’s ethnography, archeology, arts and culture; to develop a stage to showcase events; and to purchase a computer and photography equipment.

“It is important for us to have a stage for events because it will distract visitors from the temple area in order to preserve the site’s integrity,” said Rakhmat.

Toraja Melo - courtesy of Toraja Melo

Meanwhile, Toraja Melo program manager Lanny Jauhari said that the trip opportunity would give her organization more ideas to grow.

“The UK is one of the centers for social entrepreneurship in the world. We’d like to see up close some successful social enterprises in the country.

“We know that we’ve done well, but I think we need to find other examples to compare, so that we can see our flaws and be a better organization in the future,” Lanny told The Jakarta Post.

So far, the organization has faced some major challenges, said Lanny.

First, breaking with tradition.

“Originally, one motif of woven cloth belonged to one family. But what we do here is encourage more local people to produce cloth, regardless of their family background,” she said.

The key to that, said Lanny, is a good approach from a master weaver in sharing his or her skills with other people in order to produce woven textiles in large numbers and of good quality.

Second was encouraging the younger generation to learn how to weave and produce woven textiles. Third was finding the best way to sell the organization’s end products.

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