Ibu Supami

Artisans at Ibu Supami's workshop.

Ibu Supami; is a batik artisan living at a village, Kliwonan, in the regency of Sragen. She started to develop her skill in batik drawing when she was a teenager, taking parts in the production chain.

Married to Sujud Sugito in her youth, she is a mother of three. The first child, a female high school graduate, is already married; the second has achieved a bachelor degree; and the third one is finishing his degree. The children’s relatively high education (while she only managed to finish the elementary school) cannot be separated from her business as batik producer. Ibu Supami has been a supplier to a batik merchant in Solo since 1990, coordinating six workers at her home and 10 to 15 others outside her home. In 2002 she joined in the SWCU – Parahita Foundation program, and became the leader of a group of about 50 home-workers.

She is now a batik producer on her own, completely manages the whole production chain, and supplies 4 vendors in Surakarta, Yogyakarta, and Sragen. The main obstacles she faces in developing the product are design and marketing; and as a micro-scale business, she also found it hard to develop her batik production due to the limited resources, especially the business capital. Therefore the production is based on orders. She puts hope on the marketing assisted by Parahita Craft.