Hello, I am Tiah. I am 34 years old.
I got married in 2011 and have 2 sons. My oldest is 9 years old, and my younger son is 4 years old.
I am a housewife living in Central Java, Indonesia.
When I was young, still not married, I worked in a garment factory as a seamstress. After getting married, I was a housewife, because I had to take care of our children at home. My husband works in a factory, and his salary can be used for his needs. But now I have two children, and I also have more needs, so I also help my husband by drying rice at home and taking other people's rice from the fields to grind. So, I provide services to farmers who want to grind their rice. I also work for my father in the rice paddies, helping remove rice from the husks with a simple manual machine. My skin gets itchy, and I am exhausted at the end of the day. The work is indeed hard for a woman, but I do it so that I can help my husband in meeting every need for our family. Even though the income from drying and grinding rice is still not enough for me, it can be used as snacks for the children. I often work directly in the sun and do a lot of heavy lifting, carrying heavy sacks of rice. My children stay with their grandmother because I grind the rice at my mother's house. We borrowed money for the rice milling machine from the bank. If we don't borrow from the bank for business, it's a bit difficult for us to raise enough money. With the money we borrowed for the rice milling machine, I opened a service with the intention of helping my husband. Even though the work is hard, I still do it.
In the months that I am drying and grinding rice and working in the rice paddies, I only earn about $25 a month. With that I have to help feed my two children. When I sew FAVE bags for All Good Gifts, I can work at home and look after my children, and I earn three times as much as when I do all the hard work in the paddies. I feel safe because my children are at home with me, and I don't get so hot because I am working at home. So, I am very grateful for the opportunity to be working for All Good Gifts sewing FAVE bags. The earnings from making FAVE bags helps our family's economy.
I hope and always pray that this FAVE bag project will continue to run, so that it can help our family. I would be very happy if I could continue sewing, so I don't have to work in the hot sun and I don't have to lift very heavy rice.
Thank You.