Gianyar, Regency

Dekranas Gianyar

Dekranas is short for the Dewan Kerajinan Nasional (National Handicraft Council) which have five directions: (1) powering the arts and handicraft culture of local society for welfare and national prestige; (2) improving worker’s standing and prestige using the design results and technology; (3) improving worker’s education and skill in supporting the company’s development to increase villager’s income; (4) improving independency; (5) creating regulations, rules, and policies which motivate the improvement of handicraft works.

”To realize these aims, Dekranas Gianyar carries out many efforts, such as participating within handicraft exhibitions in Bali and outside Bali,” said the Secretary of Dekranas Gianyar, Agung Marwati.
Marwati who is also Head of Women’s Powering, Gianyar Regency, said that her side had founded and composed the mat worker group in Lebih Village. Through this effort, there have been five worker groups that succeeded to obtain continually order. From those five groups, four of them are the founding result of Dekranas Gianyar, and the rest is from LSM.
Dewa Made Sucipta, one of those five worker group leaders’, agrees with Marwati’s explanation. When Bali Travel News visited the groups, Dewa Sucipta with his wife was busy in working orders which he got from the foreign tourists who come to his workshop.  According to him, the orders keep continually coming in even though not as much as before the Bali bomb. “We can finish an order worth of tens millions in just a few weeks, because we already have many workers. Almost half of them are peasants and fisherman in Lebih Village,” he said.
For future handicraft development in Gianyar, according to Marwati, Dekranas together with the government had worked mutually with the Dharma Bakti Astra Foundation. Through this corporation, the wide Astra’s network can be beneficially exploited by Gianyar’s craft worker.
Chief of Industrial, Trade, and the Cooperation Department of Gianyar Regency, Drs. Gede Widarma Suharta explained, besides helping the craft workers, Dekranas is also serving the farmers of Payangan Village in marketing their coffee. “We send their coffee samples to PT Kapal Api Jakarta, we are still waiting the research result, if accepted, it will be supplied to Jakarta, and if it unaccepted, we will try to make our own brand product named ‘Kopi Payangan’. The marketing is conducted via Astra’s exhibition,” said Widarma. 
Gede expected, farmers and craft workers in Gianyar are willing to chase technology and knowledge which is continually improved, related to production and marketing. So, they will not find it monotonous. It means in effect, they in effort try to change the paradigm to make what is needed by the costumer. “Related with this manner, the Industrial and Trade Department in 2005 had provided a special budget to make a complete web site which provides handicraft work results in Gianyar. This web can be used by the worker to promote their work via the internet,” he asserted.  (BTN/Suambara)