One week after running for the second workshop, Pro-Women initiated to build a creative community that consists of a group of youth who are passionate about doing good in supporting SMEs in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara to get their business rising up in this current challenging market. They are called a Berugak Design– a community of students whose majoring in Visual Communication Design (DKV) at Bumigora University, Mataram. While in fact, Bumigora is known to be the one and only university in West Nusa Tenggara that offers DKV majors.

It was all began when these students were assigned to help SMEs in Lombok to scale up their business by rebranding. A short time later, one of the Berugak members named Ade was assisting Gumi Bamboo. A local business that has a vision in driving people to adopt zero waste lifestyle through small movement such as reducing plastic waste and switching to the more environment-friendly goods like using bamboo cutlery as what they’ve made. Coincidentally, the Gumi Bamboo has signed up to be part of the Pro-Women business incubation program that gathered since April 2019. At that time, Ade was invited to collaborate with Pro-Women to assist more SMEs in rebranding their business through providing decent concepts of visual designs in some features such as packaging, stickers, brochures, and various elements, which precisely could bring into a massive branding. Furthermore, we have seen a large number of Indonesian SMEs that is rolled to be the country’s economic drivers that are still less competitive than some more-established business because of low branding strategy.

“I remember Mbak Pritha’s story (Pro-Women facilitator), she said there was a customer who bought chips from one of SMEs in Lombok, then the customer resold chips with a cost ten times more expensive after they did rebranding,” said Ade.

The lesson learned from that story is to realize how branding could work on higher sales since it is so critical for any business to be more recognized and can change how people perceive the brand. The Berugak Design formed to be a creative community that been carrying social value since July 2019. Ade, the leader of the Berugak Design has invited other eight fellows to join the team, and they have been assisting the Pro-Women entrepreneurs in rebuilding the branding in some aspects such as product packaging renewal, making labels, logos, and stickers.  They hope, in the future, Berugak Design becomes a community that encourages large scale youth to possess the same vision by joining them. They believe, through the Berugak Design– they would gain many things to learn, both for skills and business experiences.

But to become a bigger team is undoubtedly not an easy thing. Besides, they also have some activities that should be carried on, which make their communication becomes limited. “The problem we have now is communication. Sometimes we do not have time in asking each other about the tasks or to have discussions, “said Pandu, one of the members who joined the community since its established. He also admitted that the team is hard in managing their time properly, which sometimes clashes with class schedules and activities on a day off. “But, I no wonder about it. It’s a common thing (communication issue) when you’re in the community. But the most important thing is we are still determined to continue this community even though the Pro-Women program has finished,” Pandu respond.

Dreaming of becoming the largest design community that carrying social values ​​in Lombok, Berugak Design confessed if they have a role model as their reference. “We want to be like Tata Rupa. They have the same visions and missions like us, but their location is in Surabaya. Well, the first time – I was intended to join their team. But that was impossible since we are living in different towns. That is why I am feeling so grateful to have met Pro-Women because we can build in Lombok now,” Ade explained. Aside from being motivated to carry out social activities, the Berugak Design community also dreams of creating business opportunities in the service sector. “In the future, we hope that we do not just focus on being a non-profit community, but we also want to build a business in the service industry such as providing workshops, seminars or agency if it’s possible. So, besides helping the SMEs in Lombok for free, we could have a real income, ” said Pandu, who also hopes that his team can take part to encourage the nation’s economy through the business establishment in the future.