Adapting Our Livelihoods to the Conditions of COVID-19: Indonesia
Stories | August 19, 2020
Adapting our livelihoods to the conditions of COVID-19: Indonesia
The impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods has been extensive, but increasingly CBM has been hearing reports on how people have been able to adapt to these new conditions, by adapting their businesses operations in order to continue to earn a living. CBM checked in with Hascaryo when he was facing the stresses of a reduced demand for his paper boxes, earlier in the year. In addition to running his own business, Hascaryo is a single parent, living with mental illness. During normal operating conditions, Harscaryo produces detailed gift boxes which he supplies to 16 local shops. Currently, however, his orders for boxes have dwindled from around 100 boxes per order to around six boxes per order. This has ripple effects for Harscaryo, making it difficult to provide for his family and pay for his son’s school tuition.
Despite these hurdles that Harscaryo has been able to alter his business in order to continue to earn an income, by developing a motorcycle taxi business that can be booked online. Unfortunately, with everyone operating in lockdown, this business still wasn’t sufficient to meet his needs. Luckily, Hascaryo was able to join a training program run by a CBM partner to produce face shields and personal protective equipment. Hascaryo was able to complete the training and was successfully employed with the partner organisation to produce face shields and able to meet the high demands for face shields. While it wasn’t easy to begin a new job, and he had to adapt a lot of his routines to produce the face shields, but being resilient and adaptable helped to build his confidence, and develop new routines and this has enabled him to aim for higher face shield targets. In doing so, Hascaryo notes that this new routine has helped him to manage his mental health as well. In building his skillset and taking on new challenges, Hascaryo is able to continue to provide for his son despite the difficult conditions.
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https://www.cbm.org.au/stories/adapting-our-livelihoods-to-the-conditions-of-covid-19-indonesia