No Longer Afraid of Speaking In Public

Diana is one of Cocoa Life's assisted farmers from Pangaparang Village, Lembang District, Pinrang Regency, South Sulawesi. Since the beginning of 2018, Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI) as a partner of Mondelēz International's, initiated the Cocoa Life program to provide assistance to cocoa farming communities including women in Pangaparang Village. Some of the activities they participated in included Public Speaking Training, Leadership and facilitation, and negotiation training. From this training, Diana’s mindset started to change.

“In this public speaking training, we are trained to dare to speak in public. We develop the topic ourselves using the methods and techniques we get, from self-control when speaking, to mastery of the material, to our performance. This training has also made me, who usually sit quietly while attending a meeting at an activity, feel challenged and feel this is my opportunity to learn to appear speaking in public,” said Diana.

Equipped with that experience, Diana started to be courageous and accustomed herself to always being active in various activities, both in farmer groups, at the village office, and at the sub-district office. Gradually, Diana is considered advanced in carrying her duty so that government agencies began to trust and mandate several responsibilities such as being trusted to be a posyandu cadre and a Tuberculosis Cadre (TB Cadre) at the local Community Health Center (PKM).

Not only that, Diana’s leadership starts to emerge. When the Food Security Service conducted outreach, Diana initiated women who joined the Bukit Harapan Women Farmers Group (Bukit Harapan KWT) to submit proposals to the Food Security Service. Finally, the Bukit Harapan KWT has now become one of the pilot groups to maximize the yards for nutrition garden in Lembang District.

“I am very happy because WVI has helped me to find the courage to speak up, so when I attended the meeting from the Food Security Service, I actively asked about how if Bukit Harapan KWT started to develop a demonstration plot. I was directed to meet directly with the KWT. When I met the Head of the Food Security Service I was able to negotiate so that our group could have our own demonstration plot. Thank God our demonstration plot successfully entered the Pangan Lestari 2019. This year, our demonstration plot starts to develop,” said Mrs. Diana.

“We also hope that in the future our village will provide plenty of space for women to participate in the development of village development through the Musrenang (Village Development Planning Forum) so that women's needs and voices are represented and realized,” concluded Diana.

Written by Asrul Munta, Field Facilitator, Project Cocoa Life