August 14, 2012
Indonesia
“Marking is Promotion” is one of the slogans cooperative staff of KINA / KING cooperatives in Aceh have been taken to heart. An easy and widely accessible tool to promote Aceh’s patchouli oil is through launching a website and that is exactly what the cooperatives did, supported by CCR. Launching a website is one thing, but how to make sure it is regularly updated, informational and easy to use?
CCR designed a simple website-management course for cooperative board and staff that addressed all these questions.
The training was given over the course of two days. CCR’s communication officer firstly discussed the aim of the website with the cooperatives: what do they want to accomplish? The website could serve as an easy media to reach buyers and stakeholders at the domestic and international market. Moreover, the website could help cooperatives share information on their cooperative profile, give updates on patchouli stock, used cultivation and distillation methods and upcoming events.
Cooperative staff was then trained how to write and upload articles, insert images to the photo gallery, and input cooperative specific information. They practiced a whole day and slowly shaped the cooperative website www.patchouli-aceh.com.
Surya Darma, the vice-chairman of Aceh Patchouli Cooperative in Aceh Selatan, said he learned a lot from the training. He hopes he can now directly manage the website from the cooperative office in Aceh Selatan. He said: “I hope all my collagues across the four cooperatives can work together to manage this website so that we can inform the world about the work we are doing and help the growers in our districts to improve their income”.
