The Story of a Successful Coconut Shell craftman in Kampung Batok Tanjungsari Blitar City

His tenacity and persistence of making the craft shell bags pay off. Now the craft of his shell bag is growing rapidly.

Orders for shell bags from outside the region continue to flow every month, starting from Bali, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Aceh, Sulawesi, to Kalimantan Indonesia.

Technology development makes the marketing of shell bags reaching overseas at present. He markets his batok or coconut shell bag through social media. As a result, many Indonesian workers abroad are ordering shell bags in their places and reselling it in overseas.

The countries are from Hong Kong, Singapore, the Netherlands, even to Russia.

The production of shell bags continues to grow. Everyday, he produces about 50-75 shell bags. The number of workers also increased to 43 people. Almost the workers are his neighbors. Not only bags, but he also produces key chains, tissue boxes, and lighting places.

The price of the craft of Rofi's shell bag is affordable, it’s started from Rp. 50,000 to Rp. 100,000 per seed. With the initial capital of Rp 2 million, now the turnover of the business of Rofi's handicraft bag reaches Rp 50 million per month. The Turnover has not been deducted with employee salaries, raw material purchases, and also other production costs.

Rofi is grateful that his shell craft business is growing rapidly. However, he is more grateful to create job opportunities for unemployed neighbors. The development of its business automatically creat new job vacancy.

"At least my initial intention of handicraft giving benefits the surrounding community has already been realized. This was my alms in afterlife," he said.

(sha)

Translator : Sarah