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March 14, 2025Tetalising Herbal Soap from Dapitau Village
Representative of the Tetalising Herbal Soap Group from Dapitau Village
Empowering rural communities is one of the target achievements of the UPKM / CD Bethesda YAKKUM program with the aim of enhancing the ability of rural communities to maximize the local potential of the village. The utilization of local potential in the village to answer all the problems of the village community is essential, it is just a matter of how to empower the village community with adequate abilities and skills so that they can be used for their daily lives.
Recognizing the importance of this, CD Bethesda YAKKUM continually creates various innovations related to empowerment based on local potential. One of the efforts made is to providing health-related training, including training in processing herbal ingredients into herbal soap products, which of course have health and economic benefits.
One of the villages that received training in making herbal soap is Dapitau Village in North Central Alor District. The type of soap made is herbal solid soap whose ingredients consist of herbal plants such as gandarusa leaves, ketepeng cina, turmeric, sere, moringa leaves, papaya leaves, neem leaves and siri leaves.
The process of making herbal soap by the Tetalising Herbal Soap Group from Dapitau Village
This training was organized by the Dapitau Village Government using the Village Fund. Meanwhile UPKM/CD Bethesda YAKKUM as a facilitator in this activity. Participants were very enthusiastic about making herbal soap and they agreed to form a herbal soap group in Dapitau Village following the training activities.
The agreement to form this group stems from a shared commitment to developing herbal soap in the village. There are six mothers as members and named their group "TETALISING". TETALISING group members agreed to make contributions in the form of money to buy some supporting materials such as coconut oil, palm oil and caustic soda. They then began the process of developing herbal soap.
The role of the Dapitau Village Government is significant. By allocating Village Funds to buy supporting equipment such as soap molds, mixers, measuring kettles and digital scales that are handed over to groups that want to develop herbal soap.
After the production process was completed, the TETALISING group began selling the soap through social media platforms like Facebook. Their target market included both children and adults. They began selling their products in the village and neighboring villages and even in urban areas. The soap products sold out in no more than a week. Most of the profit from soap sales is reused for group development, and the rest is kept in the group's treasury. The herbal soap products of the TETALISING group were also included in the Expo Alor activity organized by the Alor Regency Government.
Some community members, such as mothers with children and adults, who use the soap feel the benefits by providing testimonials regarding the impact felt after several times using the herbal soap to treat several skin problems.
During its journey, the TETALISING group also faced challenge such as limited time because each member also had other activities, such as managing their garden, and taking care of the household duties. This group also has future plans, where they want to have soap-making equipment, have a business license and developing their own soap packaging.
Seeing the great potential of this herbal soap, the Dapitau Village Government is committed to always supporting every activity related to community empowerment. "We are ready to collaborate with UPKM/CD Bethesda YAKKUM and are prepared to support every empowerment program, as it aims to improve the health status of the village community," said the Head of Dapitau Village, Abimalek Fankari.
(Richard Padama).
