The Human Rights Defenders Community in Sikalang Village, Talawi District, Sawahlunto City consists of victims from CV Tahiti Coal's underground coal mining activities. They have felt the negative impacts of mining activities, such as polluted water sources, cracked houses, collapsed gardens and many plants dying due to drought. This situation causes increasingly serious economic problems which actually forces people to switch to jobs that damage the environment, such as becoming miners.
Departing from this situation and concerns, this community initiated a program to utilize yard land by cultivating kelulut honey by considering the potential and natural conditions of the surrounding area. The community hopes that this program can increase the income of community members and can become a source of social funds amidst the increasingly difficult life in the village.
In the long term, this program is expected to be a good start for the Sikalang Village community to build a more sustainable economy. Of course, it is not easy to start a program because of the many limitations and increasingly heavy burdens faced by the community due to mining. However, the use of the Nusantara Fund and mutual cooperation have made it easier for the community to carry out various kelulut honey bee cultivation activities.
Throughout December 2022, the community carried out a series of activities and achieved important achievements for the cultivation of Kelulut honey bees, namely:
- Procurement of demonstration plots for Kelulut honey bees, Saturday and Sunday, 10-11 December 2022. Now the community has demonstration plots for Kelulut honey bees, Thoracica and Itama types, which can be used by 15 community members. Using this demonstration plot, you will receive technical guidance and a 3 month guarantee. Before there was a demonstration plot, the community worked together to find enforcers for the Kelulut honey bee demonstration plot and installed it in the yard of the house that had been determined by the community.
- Survey and determination of locations for cultivating Kelulut honey bees, Monday, December 12 2022. Based on the survey results, the community has determined 6 community locations for cultivating Kelulut honey bees in Sikalang Village.
- Kelulut honey bee cultivation training in Sikalang Village, Saturday, December 24 2022. This training includes several presentation sessions and discussion exercises on:
– About cultivation methods, types of Kelulut honey bees, maintenance and care.
– About post-harvest for packaging, labeling and marketing of kelulut honey.
– Preparation of SOP for cultivating Kelulut honey bees
This training has provided direct benefits in the form of knowledge and skills to all participants from the community. There are at least 16 active participants (8 men and 8 women) in cultivation and post-harvest training. The community also succeeded in creating an SOP for cultivating Kelulut honey bees. The knowledge gained by participants can be disseminated to other relatives or the community in Sikalang village. This will be very useful for supporting various efforts for more sustainable economic development.
The use of Nusantara Fund Direct Funding has provided many lessons to improve the activities of the Sikalang Village Human Rights Defender Community in cultivating stingless bees. In terms of access to funding, the community can easily obtain information, fill out forms and the provisions of the Nusantara Fund. This is very important because from this aspect we learn that support for community initiatives should avoid various technical complexities.
Community energy should be directed more towards building ideas and working together. Therefore, the activities carried out also provide enthusiasm and foster collectivity within the community to overcome various challenges, such as difficulties in creating demonstration plots and searching for distant Kelulut honey bee seeds.
The most important learning is community education in the form of training, discussion and joint work which must be carried out continuously to improve collective skills and knowledge. If previously knowledge was limited to certain people, now knowledge about cultivating Kelulut honey bees can become collective knowledge.
The community can understand how to differentiate Thoricica and Itama kelulut honey bees, how to cultivate, maintain, develop (multiplying colonies and adding vegetation), making demonstration plots, and product packaging and marketing.
The community now understands better that the types of honey bees owned by the community, namely Thoricica and Itama, are very good in Sawahlunto. The Thoricica type is an endemic type of Kelulut honey bee from Sawahlunto. All this knowledge has now been implemented in the form of community work for cultivating kelulut honey bees in Sikalang Village. This is a good step in community economic development which can further strengthen environmental advocacy.
This initiative must not stop. Now people can see firsthand that their home gardens can be used for economic activities and without the use of dangerous chemicals. The Sikakang Village Human Rights Defenders Community continues to strive to develop community-based kelulut honey bee cultivation.
