Not Only Trained but We Are also Taught to Dream
Derven Aryanto (28), a man from East Nusa Tenggara, is willing to do any work to generate income for his family. His decision to marry Ekriana Faosoni (25) made him more confident to give the best for his family.
Derven began to venture into being a farmer working on other people's horticultural crops. He receives a salary of IDR1.5 million every three months. Meanwhile, his wife Ekriana works as a shopkeeper.
Even so, Derven feels that their income is not sufficient for the family's needs, especially now that they are blessed with a son. Armed with this experience as a smallholder farmer, Derven decided to open a horticultural land.
"As a novice farmer, I started with chickpeas because it was easier to care for and it took 45 days to harvest and make money," he said.
After two years of focusing on horticultural farming, Derven and his wife decided to stop working and focus on being horticultural farmers. Derven admits that he earns enough for his daily needs, even for savings.
"However, sometimes there are times when our income is not enough because the money we make is not used, especially there are non-essential expenses that we spend," he said.
In October 2021, Derven and his wife were involved in the Moringa project of Wahana Visi Indonesia, funded by Australian Aid (AusAID), as one of the participants in the Gender Inclusive Financial Literacy training. Both of them gained a lot of knowledge related to how to create a family vision, to how to manage household finances.
The training also brought Derven and Ekriana to a dream they never imagined, which is to own their farm. Understandably, the horticultural land that he currently uses is family land and can be taken over at any time.
“Finally, after the training, we have a target for the next three years, we already have our land, so we start saving and limiting non-essential expenses. We started recording household expenses and after giving birth to our second child, my wife would return to work,” he explained happily.
Derven admitted that he felt the most important change after attending the training. Derven and his wife are now starting to be more serious about saving at the Monafen Credit Cooperative after getting their harvest. This they do in preparation for buying the land of their dreams.
"My hope is for newly formed household couples, don't be shy about farming and the results from that, prioritize saving first even though it doesn't have to be a lot, then the rest is used for other needs," he concluded.
Written by: Ferdinand Bano, Moringa & Putri Barus Project Officer, Communications Officer Wahana Visi Indonesia.
Translated by: Aqueta Alexandra Kroons, Intern Wahana Visi Indonesia.
