When Women Lead: How Pasaran’s Kartini Turned Waste into Wins

In Pulau Pasaran, where the sea yields both fish and plastic, the crisis of waste comes in waves. For decades, trash washed ashore and had slowly been building up into an extension of the island. Data from Gajahlah Kebersihan's 2021 waste sampling and audit report reveals that Pasaran Island generates a staggering 149,000 kilograms of waste annually, of which 64 percent is residual waste such as plastic bags and straws. Adding to the concern, a 2022 Askara Cendikia research points to a severe lack of waste management awareness among the island's residents, with approximately 90 percent of households admitting to disposing of their waste directly into the ocean. This problem disrupted the lives of the community, polluting the waters and affecting the economic activities of the community who mostly rely on fisheries.

The mothers were the main witnesses of how the island's waste crisis began choking the community’s livelihoods. Within their traditional role as a caretaker, women are at the forefront in dealing with the impact of waste problem in their living environment, while simultaneously lacking the agency to influence the systems responsible for it. Public waste management–the infrastructure, the budgets, and the policymaking–were predominantly male-led. In Pasaran, as in many rural communities in Indonesia, cultural norms framed women’s community labor as an extension of caregiving, not leadership. Women’s contributions remained confined to unpaid, invisible acts that mostly ended at the edges of their doorsteps.

Then something shifted.

In 2023, the Pasaran Wawai consortium, under GoTo Impact Foundation’s Catalyst Changemakers Ecosystem program, started building a circular economy-based waste management system for the island. One of their initiatives was training women as environmental cadres, equipping them with the knowledge about segregation, composting, and recycling. These women, once confined to the private sphere, are now stepping forward as changemakers. What began as a waste management campaign has become a transformation journey for these women. It has empowered them to rewrite their roles and redefine their community's future.

The consortium arrived at the island with questions and a willingness to listen. Early meetings with the mothers took place within PKK (family welfare program) meetings. The consortium identified the needs of the households and mapped the island’s waste problems: from the lack of waste sorting to alternative income that can replace lost fishing yields. Out of these discussions emerged a pilot cohort of 13 mothers, dubbed Kartini Pasaran–a nod to Indonesia’s feminist icon, but also a word that signifies the role of these women as the island’s agents of change.

The anchor of Kartini Pasaran is co-creation. Local women were not seen as beneficiaries, but partners who own the initiative. The Kartini cadres, many of whom had never held formal titles, were trained not just in waste segregation, but also in advocacy. When the Kartini Pasaran cadres first knocked on their neighbors’ doors, they carried no clipboards, no technical jargon. Just the quiet authority of shared experience. This was the initiative’s strength–it met people where they were, literally and culturally. The cadres, all women with deep roots in Pasaran, did not need to convince people to trust them. They already had what outsiders could never replicate: social capital.

The cadres’ routines became the program’s scaffolding. They organized goro-goro, traditional communal cleanups where families gathered with gloves, sacks, and other equipments in hand to comb beaches and clean up their village. Between cleanups, discussions on challenges and solutions buzzed both offline and online. The WhatsApp group, initially created as a coordination tool, became a digital space where people proposed ideas, shared achievements, and held one another accountable.

The most impressive outcome of this advocacy, however, was the intergenerational shift in attitude. By embedding environmental action in the rhythms of family life, the program made sustainability inseparable from daily rituals. The children who learned about waste sorting and upcycling from their mothers were able to inspire their peers and even their teachers at school. They pushed for sustainability practices, such as waste sorting, and hosted workshops in creating handicrafts from waste. This shows the rippling, intergenerational effects of mothers as advocates.

The mothers soon realized that trash was not just a problem. It was a currency. Together with the consortium, they established SEA MAMA to transform inorganic waste into wallets and handicrafts. The consortium provided training, facilities, and market access, while the mothers led production, crafting everything from tissue boxes to large collaborative pieces such as plastic-woven mattresses. Sales from these goods provided additional income for the households, and their success led to invitations to share their upcycling skills and experience.

Yet plastic was only half the battle. Organic waste from homes and fish processing remained unmanaged. When budget constraints stalled composting plans, the women pushed for maggot farming. They managed this expansion of organic waste processing and eventually took charge of the operational activities. Using fermented organic waste to breed black soldier flies, they converted waste into livestock feed; proving again that environmental solutions could yield economic value.

Environmental sustainability cannot be divorced from social equity. The mothers did not just clean up waste. They put new value into it, one that aligns ecological goals with economic survival. By upcycling plastic packaging into handicrafts, they challenged the notion that women can only become caretakers of the environment. Instead, they became entrepreneurs, converting a symbol of environmental harm into a source of income. Similarly, RINDU’s maggot farms, rooted in the women’s daily handling of organic waste, turned a public health hazard into a circular economy asset.

What shifted the perception of Pasaran’s mothers from domestic caretakers to community leaders? The answer lies in a confluence of institutional empowerment, cultural reimagination, and economic necessity.

The consortium’s decision to position mothers as co-creators, not just beneficiaries or implementors, disrupted patriarchal norms. By involving women in designing waste programs and discussions with other stakeholders, the consortium tapped into their knowledge. They legitimized the mothers’ lived experience as a caregiver and their understanding of waste problems. This shows the importance of leveraging gendered knowledge as a catalyst for systemic change.

The Kartini Pasaran program further shifted the perception in Pasaran. It redefined what it meant to be a “mother” by embedding environmental advocacy into culturally familiar roles. As a result, women were able to expand their social identity from private nurturers to public stewards. Additionally, community validation reinforced this shift. Once hesitant to speak in public, the mothers are now invited to train other communities in waste processing and upcycling, further solidifying their new role in the community.

Finally, economic opportunities through SEA MAMA and RINDU provided more than income. These programs empowered women by giving them access to resources, achievements, and agency. When the mothers earned their income from upcycled products, they gained bargaining power within households and communities, which allowed them to explore more options. When the mothers wore their SEA MAMA shirts, they showed pride in their work and declared a new definition of their societal roles.

So, how can we replicate this success in shifting the community’s perception? The lesson is clear: sustainable change requires designing with, not for, and especially not without women. Here’s how:

1. Institutionalize Women’s Knowledge and Social Network: Trust drives behavioral change. The Kartini cadres relied on their peer networks and lived experience to mobilize households. Therefore, interventions should identify and institutionalize “cultural insiders,” such as women who are already respected as caregivers and community connectors. Formalizing their roles as co-creators would transform their knowledge and social capital into institutional authority.
2. Reframe, Don’t Replace, Cultural Roles: Challenging patriarchal norms head-on often sparks backlash. Instead, Pasaran’s model expands women’s agency by aligning new roles with their existing social identities. Framing women’s new public roles as an extension of their identity as a “caregiver” eased up acceptance from the wider (especially male-dominated) community. Onwards, we can facilitate women to subtly reshape their roles through continuous actions and interactions, as communities started acknowledging the impact of their contributions.
3. Invest in Women’s Economic Ecosystems: Economic autonomy is the cornerstone of agency. Programs must prioritize income-generating opportunities that align with women’s existing skills and cultural roles. In Pasaran, SEA MAMA succeeded because it provided financial gain on top of environmental outcomes, which further increased women’s bargaining power.
4. Prioritize Intergenerational Engagement: Youths are accelerators of change. In Pasaran, kids taught teachers upcycling skills after observing and helping their mother. Therefore, interventions should design activities that engage parents and children together to normalize new behaviors while strengthening their bonds. This will also sustain the change into the next generation.

Pasaran’s mothers did not set out to defy patriarchy. They set out to feed their families, clean their homes, and secure a future for their children. Yet in doing so, they revealed a universal truth: when women are given tools that align with their lived realities, they don’t just solve problems. They redefine what’s possible.